












CopyrieiitN 0 

CflEffilGHT DEPOSED 


* 































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* 











' 


































■ 




















, 




















.. 










































; 

























































































































































































































































AF GHANIs 


I Khyber 


imritsar ^ 


Lahore' 


Quetta 


BALUCHrSTAN/'< 


BHUTAN • 


PROVINCES 
««sj\ /^Lucknow 


^;Jaip(ir 


■GwaliorsP 


Nlyitkyinaj^ / 


Yunnan 


J 0 DjP U R 


4JlsJ\abad 


IROPIC. 


Nanning 


Bhcmol 


; V"- V j 


a RABIa 


N . v .->HanoiT 

rET 4 ?H if 
S \\ 


Mandalay 


CENTRAL PROVINCES 


Hainan 


'enangyaungl 


AND BERAR 


Bombayi 


Bombay 


HYDERABAD 


Londji i. 


Jourane 


'Bombay 


Hyderabad 


Moulmein 


Bangkok 


IRsore 

Z |^^ 3 ngalore c # ^ 

> ( 

\ ’ 

\ 5 B un i o 11 


Andaman 


Pnom-Penh 


gulf of 


Laccadive 


Islands 


Cholon 


SI AM 


iCalicut’iV 


Madura 


Nicobar *• 


(CEYLON 


Colombo 


Maidive 


Natuna 
\ Islands 


-t—YEDERATE^ 

|tV^ ALAY 


Islands 


q\ r NEO 


touMO* 


CfeMTOA 


Scale of Miles 
0 50 100 200 



/ * 

/ • 

1 ) y 


z^f\/ U 


Karachi? 0 J ^ 


















































































































































CARPENTER’S 
WORLD TRAVELS 


Familiar Talks About Countries 
and Peoples 


WITH THE AUTHOR ON THE SPOT AND THE 
READER IN HIS HOME, BASED ON A 
HALF MILLION MILES OF TRAVEL 
OVER THE GLOBE 


“READING CARPENTER IS SEEING THE WORLD’' 




























FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 
















( 


t 




J 
















IN INDIA 

A land where women are generally despised, stands the Taj Mahal, the 
most beautiful building in all the world, erected by a prince to the 
memory of his wife. 









CARPENTER’S WORLD TRAVELS 


FROM BANGKOK 
TO BOMBAY 

Siam. French Indo-China, Burma, 
Hindustan 

BY 

FRANK G. CARPENTER 

LITT.D., F.R.G.S. 



WITH 102 ILLUSTRATIONS 
FROM ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHS 


GARDEN CITY NEW YORK 

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
i 924 














COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY 

carpenter’s WORLD TRAVELS 


ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES 
AT 

THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 

First Edition 


DEC 22 '24 

©C1A814355 

Wft I 


5 


AC KNOWLE DG M ENTS 


I N THE publication of this volume on my travels from 
Bangkok to Bombay I wish to thank the Secretary of 
State for letters that have given me the assistance of 
the official representatives of our government in the 
countries visited. I thank also our Secretary of Agricul¬ 
ture and our Secretary of Labour for appointing me an 
honorary commissioner of their departments in foreign 
lands. Their credentials have been of the greatest value, 
making available sources of information seldom open to 
the ordinary traveller. To the British-Indian authorities 
I desire to express my thanks for exceptional courtesies, 
which greatly aided my investigations. 

I also thank Mr. Dudley Harmon, my editor, and Miss 
Josephine Lehmann and Miss Ellen McBryde Brown, my 
associate editors, for their assistance and cooperation in 
the revision of the notes dictated or penned by me on the 
ground. 

While most of the illustrations in Carpenter’s World 
Travels are from my own negatives, those in this volume 
have been supplemented by photographs from the 
Publisher’s Photo Service, R. B. Pendergast, Ewing 
Galloway, Hugh M. Smith, Charles C. Batchelder, the 
Board of Missionary Cooperation of the Northern Baptist 
Convention, and the World Service Commission of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church. 


F. G. C. 








CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I. 

Just a Word Before We Start . . 

PAGE 

I 

II. 

In Bangkok . 

3 

III. 

King Rama and His Realm .... 

M 

IV. 

Some Shrines and Rites of Siam . 

25 

V. 

Siam’s French Neighbour .... 

35 

VI. 

Burma and Its Capital. 

46 

VII. 

The Golden Pagoda. 

55 

VIII. 

Rice Mills and Paddy Fields of the 



Irrawaddy. 

66 

IX. 

At the Rangoon Jail. 

74 

X. 

Elephant Lumber Jacks. 

82 

XI. 

The Light of Asia. 

89 

XII. 

The Women of Burma. 

98 

XIII. 

Calcutta . 

111 

XIV. 

The Viceroy and His Job .... 

120 

XV. 

On the Roof of the Globe 

132 

XVI. 

Tea Farms of the Himalayas . 

141 

XVII. 

On the Fringe of India. 

150 

XVIII. 

The Ashes of Buddha. 

.58 

XIX. 

Travelling on India’s Railways . 

168 


IX 







CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

XX. Benares, Holy City of the Hindus 178 

XXI. The Bathers and Burning Ghats of 

the Ganges .189 

XXII. The Slaves of Caste.194 

XXIII. The Hungry Farmers of Hindustan 203 

XXIV. Delhi. 214 

XXV. Woman’s Greatest Monument . . 225 

XXVI. Baby Brides and Child Widows . 233 

z'"' 

XXVII. Jaipur and the Rajahs. 243 

XXVIII. Bombay, Western Gateway of India 255 

XXIX. The Towers of Silence on Malabar 

Hill.2 66 

XXX. Indian Captains of Industry . . 274 

XXXI. John Bull’s Biggest Police Job . 282 

XXXII. Husband Hunting and the Social 

Tug of War.292 

See the World.300 

Index.303 


x 







LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


The Taj Mahal. 

New Road in Bangkok . 

Canals of the Siamese capital 

Floating homes. 

A bath in the river . 

The King of Siam 
The Royal Palace 
The rice ceremony . 

A primitive water wheel 
A raft of teak logs . 

Siamese entertainers 
Houses along the river . 

A Siamese temple . 

The king’s funeral pyre. 
Cultivating rice in Indo-China 
Crude thresher .... 
The Sule Pagoda 
New Year’s Day in Rangoon 
The Temple .... 
Stairs of the Golden Pagoda 
Monks at breakfast 
The monk and his disciple . 

A boat in the Irrawaddy . 


. Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 
2 

. . . 3 

. . . 6 

• • • 7 

. . . 14 

. . . 15 

. . . 15 

. . . 18 

. . . 19 

22 

. . . 23 

. . . 30 

. . . 31 

. . . 38 

•39 
... 46 

... 47 

. . . 54 

. . . 55 

62 

• • 63 

... 66 


xi 






















ILLUSTRATIONS 


Silks for the bazaars .... 

FACING PAGE 

. 67 

In Dalhousie Park. 

.67 

Harvesting rice. 

.70 

Winnowing rice. 

.71 

A jail workshop. 

.78 

How prisoners are punished 

. 79 

The praying Buddhist .... 

. 82 

A sleeping Buddha. 

.83 

Scrubbing an elephant .... 

.86 

Elephants at work. 

.87 

A tattooed tribesman .... 

. 94 

Oil wells in Burma. 

. 95 

Burmese school girls .... 

. 98 

Smokers, young and old 

. 99 

Women street merchants 

. 102 

The great banyan tree .... 

. I0 3 

A millionaire's palace .... 

.no 

A bridge over the Hooghly River . 

. 111 

Government House. 

. 114 

Calcutta beggar. 

.115 

A hill tribesman. 

. 118 

The peaks of the Himalayas . 

. 119 

St. Paul's in Darjeeling. 

. 126 

Roadside performers .... 

. 127 

In the Darjeeling bazaar . 

.134 

The railroad through the forest 

.135 

Women of Thibet. 

. 142 

Tea plantation. 

.143 

In the valley of Kashmir . 

.150 

Gypsy women. 

.1 5 1 

The prayer bell. 

. 158 


xii 










ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING PAGE 

The temple at Buddha Gaya . ~ 

• • 159 

Railroad station at Bombay .... 

1 70 

On an Indian railway. 

171 

A camel cart. 

... 178 

A chair and bearers. 

... 178 

The Temple of Juggernaut .... 

... 179 

The sacred cow. 

l82 

The monkey temple. 

... I83 

A bed of spikes. 

190 

The burning ghats. 

191 

The mark of caste. 

. 194 

How grain is threshed. 

... 195 

Climbing the toddy palm. 

. . I98 

In the shoemaker’s bazaar. 

... 199 

An Indian laundry. 

. . . 199 

A native plough. 

206 

The palace at Udaipur. 

207 

An Indian well. 

214 

In Delhi. 

... 215 

The Mogul fort. 

... 215 

The stairs of Jumma Musjid .... 

222 

Showing the treasure. 

223 

The Kutab Minar. 

226 

The Taj Mahal and pool. 

227 

The marble screen . 

23O 

The boy bridegroom. 

. . . 23I 

How women travel. 

238 

The girl widow. 

238 

The girl mother. 

... 239 

The minarets. 

242 

Ruler of a native state. 

... 243 


xiii 











ILLUSTRATIONS 


FACING PAGE 

The royal elephants.246 

Indian acrobats.247 

In Bombay Harbour.254 

India's cotton.254 

A policeman of Bombay.255 

In the crowded city.262 

The jugglers.263 

The tower of silence.270 

A Parsee woman.271 

India's water-power and mills.278 

The Royal Yacht Club.279 

The native handicraft.279 

The flag that never comes down.286 

Khyber Pass.287 

The peacock sellers.290 

Along the Jhelum River.291 

Service in India.291 

A home in the hills.298 

One of the new women.299 


XIV 


















FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 






FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


CHAPTER I 

JUST A WORD BEFORE WE START 

F ROM Bangkok to Bombay, from the home of the 
white elephant where the gentle Buddha reigns, 
to the Towers of Silence where the fire worship¬ 
ping Parsees lay out their naked dead for the 
vultures to eat! A world lies between. It is the great 
world of Hindustan and the Indo-Chinese peninsula, the 
home of more than one fifth of mankind. It is an old 
world and a new world. Four thousand years ago, when 
Babylon flourished and Abraham sat before his tents in 
Shechem, people of the same family of the human race 
as that from which we are supposed to have sprung came 
down from the north and established themselves in India. 
To-day the country is inhabited by hundreds of millions 
of descendants of these Aryans, who are groping for the 
light and, stimulated by the example of our civilization, 
are clamouring for freedom. 

Siam, Burma, India, Malaysia!—all the peoples of 
southern Asia are awake and rubbing their eyes. They 
are stretching their mighty limbs and girding themselves 
for the conflict of the future. This book gives my im¬ 
pressions of the old and the new, and is composed of the 
notes made from day to day as I travelled. We start 


i 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


among the floating homes of the city of Bangkok and then 
go around through the Strait of Singapore and up the 
Bay of Bengal to Burma. We see 

the road to Mandalay, 

Where the flyin’-fishes play. 

An’ the dawn comes up like thunder outer 
China ’crost the Bay! 

We go next to the world of Kipling and of Gandhi, 
the world of Siva and Buddha and of the many races 
and castes that make up the restless Hindustan of to-day. 
The Empire of India has almost twice as many Hindus 
as we have people in the United States; it has more 
than eleven million Buddhists and in it sixty-nine 
million Mohammedans turn daily toward Mecca as 
they pray. There are nearly two thousand castes, or 
classes, the members of which will not eat, drink, or 
sleep with each other. It has between one hundred and 
thirty-two different languages and some claim that there 
are forty-five different races among its people. 

In our travels we shall find the jugglers vying with the 
movies, and the snake charmers competing with the phono¬ 
graph and the radio as it broadcasts speeches and songs. 
The burning ghats still flame on the banks of the Ganges, 
and a gasoline launch will carry us by the bathers in holy 
Benares. We shall hear the shrill voices of the muezzin call¬ 
ing to prayers from the minarets of the Jumma Musjid, the 
great mosque of Delhi, half drowned in the shriek of the 
locomotive that brings the English to that new capital of In¬ 
dia. We shall ride to the Taj Mahal in an automobile, and 
in the native states shall joggle along upon the elephants of 
the rajahs to visit the ruins of past splendours. The 
itinerary is fascinating. Let us be on our way. 


2 



Not so many years ago New Road, the main thoroughfare of Bangkok, 
was only a winding elephant track along the Menam River. Nowadays 
motors, rickshaws, and handcarts are mingled in the stream of traffic 
flowing past temples and pagodas. 







* The canals of Bangkok are flushed by the tides, which bear away the 
refuse thrown out by the people living along the banks. These canal- 
dwellers do their shopping in the bridges of stores spanning the water¬ 
ways here and there. , 









CHAPTER II 


IN BANGKOK 

S OME fifteen hundred miles off the beaten path of 
travel around the world and twenty-five miles 
i up a mighty river from the South China Sea 
I sit writing these lines. All about me are scenes 
so different from those surrounding my readers at 
home that the latter scarcely seem to me real. It is 
December. Is it possible that in my home city of Wash¬ 
ington people are muffled to the ears in furs as they fight 
against the sharp winds sweeping down Pennsylvania 
Avenue, while I, here in Bangkok, with doors and windows 
wide open, find the lightest of white linen clothing op¬ 
pressive? It makes me perspire just to think of the over¬ 
coats and thick underwear being worn on the other side 
of the globe, and the Siamese costume of three yards of 
cotton material appeals to me more and more. 

The click of my typewriter mingles with the songs of 
hundreds of birds of splendid plumage. Now and then the 
perfumes of myriads of flowers drift in, blended, it is true, 
with other scents not so delightful but just as characteris¬ 
tic of this Siamese capital. The Menam River is lined 
with coconut palms, and boats flit in and out of watery 
jungles where monkeys chatter in the branches of the 
trees. 

I wish I could give you a picture of our sail up the 
Menam to Bangkok. This is the largest river in Siam 

3 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


and the natives call it the “Mother of All Waters.” 
From its mouth in the Gulf of Siam, an arm of the South 
China Sea, we wound and twisted our way through a low, 
flat country to Bangkok. At frequent intervals along 
the banks were clusters of floating houses anchored to 
piles and half hidden by palm trees. Here and there were 
canals, branching off into the jungle and lined with huts 
built of bamboo, their sides and roofs thatched with palm 
leaves. Some of the huts stood on piles high above the 
water, but more often they floated on its surface, being 
moored to poles driven into the bed of the river so they 
might rise and fall with the tide. The huts looked not 
unlike two large dog kennels fastened together and covered 
with palm leaves. 

Here and there through an opening in the palm trees I 
caught glimpses of a country as flat as the surface of the 
river itself, with ploughed fields as black as my boots. 
The only beasts upon it were ugly water buffaloes. There 
were no fences, no barns—only the thatched houses on 
piles. As we neared Bangkok the stream was alive with 
craft of all kinds. Naked brown youngsters paddled long 
canoes not over two feet wide in which the least shifting 
of the balance would upset the rowers. There were 
women wearing great straw hats, which looked like in¬ 
verted work-baskets, sitting bare-legged and barebreasted 
in their boats. Smart motor launches went putt-putting 
along as if they were shouldering aside the more primitive 
craft and snorting with contempt as they did so. 

And once landed in the streets cf Bangkok, what a city 
of contrasts I found it! Palaces and hovels side by side. 
Straight, wide, tree-shaded boulevards set with sub¬ 
stantial houses, and evil-smelling canals lined with 
4 


IN BANGKOK 


tumble-down huts perched on piles or floating on bamboo 
rafts. The honk of the automobile and the clang of the 
trolley car mingling with the cry of the rickshaw coolie 
and the shouts of the driver of the horse-drawn gharry. 
Fine hotels, luxuriously appointed, with native food-stands 
at their very doors. 

Everywhere I go in this capital I am surprised by the 
modern character of a city that is at the same time so 
strange and picturesque. Bangkok has one of the finest 
race-courses in the East. There are several clubs, among 
them the United Club, which is open to all nationalities. 
There are banks, well-equipped hospitals, and up-to-date 
hotels managed by Europeans. Among the best of the hos- 
telries is the Royal, which is run by a Neapolitan woman. 
She leases this white marble castle from the King, who 
got it in satisfaction of an unpaid claim on its bankrupt 
owner's estate. But royalty already had more palaces 
than it needed, so this one was turned over to the Italian 
woman to manage as a hotel for the rest of her life. She is' 
charged only a nominal rent but must cater for important 
court functions. To her has been awarded the highest 
decoration the King can bestow, that of the Order of the 
White Elephant. 

The busiest thoroughfare is the New Road, which 
stretches away from the royal palace to the southeast. 
Not so many years ago this was a winding elephant track 
along the river. Now it is a broad modern avenue lined 
for some three miles with shops, department stDres, and 
other business buildings, and traversed by elect ric street 
cars, following each other at intervals of a few minutes. 
Here, too, one sees bullock carts, native omnibuses, 
jinrikishas, and motors. 


5 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


The people are even more varied than the vehicles. 
One may see Japanese, Chinese, Javanese, Koreans, 
Burmese, Afghans, Klings, Malays, Cambodians, Sia¬ 
mese—all the various elements that go to make up this 
cosmopolitan city of seven hundred thousand souls. 
Now and then through the midst of these Orientals, 
each of whom still clings for the most part to his native 
costume, strides a Britisher, an American, or a French¬ 
man, dressed in the “whites” of the tropics. There are 
only about one thousand Europeans and Americans in 
Bangkok, but they are an important part of the popula¬ 
tion, for King Rama VI, an Oxford man and the first 
Asiatic ruler educated in western schools, encourages the 
introduction of occidental civilization. 

New Road is intersected at right angles by numerous 
streets leading to the river. Two of the most beautiful 
are the Bhyadhai Road and the Rajadammeren Road, or 
King’s Walk. On the latter the branches of tamarisk 
trees meet over the avenue leading to the hill on which is 
one of the finest of the many Buddhist temples of Bang¬ 
kok, the Wat Sa Ket. 

The centre of the city is the royal palace, which rises 
on a bend of the river. Its outer walls enclose an im¬ 
mense area, though the space occupied by the palace 
and its garden is comparatively small. Inside the walls 
are the Foreign Office, the Treasury, the Ministry of the 
Interior, and other departments, as well as the Royal 
Library, the barracks, and a splendid Buddhist temple. 
Surrounding the palace on the land side is the city proper, 
which was once girdled by a massive wall, most of which 
has now been pulled down. Next to the palace is a big, 
open, grassy place fringed with trees. This is the Pre- 
6 



Many of Bangkok’s canals run far into the interior and connect the 
Menam with other rivers. They are always crowded with boats that 
bring in rice and other farm products or furnish floating homes for 
thousands. 







Although they are a good-natured and happy-looking lot, the Siamese 
girls and women, even when taking their daily baths, are not exactly al¬ 
luring. They all wear their hair boy-style and most of them chew betel- 
nut, which blackens their teeth and stains their lips. 




IN BANGKOK 


mane, formerly used for cremations of the royal dead but 
now the scene of military drills, kite-flying contests, and 
cricket and football matches. From the Premane to the 
northeast runs a wide boulevard of three carriage ways 
separated from each other by lines of trees and bordered 
by shady footpaths. This road leads to the private resi¬ 
dence of the King at Dusit Park. 

All through Bangkok are canals, or klongs, as they 
are called, bridged over at frequent intervals and crossed 
by modern highways lined with trees and electric lights. 
Once they were the main lines of communication between 
different parts of the city, and they are still alive with 
traffic. On one of them is the cold storage plant. All 
the way along it, from the Cold Storage anchorage, which 
is a sort of Times Square of Bangkok, out to the river, 
this klong is full of trading and pleasure craft. Coal 
barges, motor launches, and boats loaded with poultry 
and all sorts of produce crowd the waterway. Native 
merchants sell fans to the occupants of passing boats, 
while travelling cooks in mere cockle shells dispense hot 
soup or rice from pots on little charcoal stoves. Along 
comes the postman with his bag of mail in the bottom of 
his boat to be distributed to families dwelling on the 
banks or in the floating houses in the river. In the main 
stream are anchored vessels flying the flags of many 
nations, ships taking on loads of teak for Europe or 
America, big rice boats bringing the harvest to the Bang¬ 
kok mills, rafts of teak logs, and priests' boats paddled by 
pupils of the temple schools. Along the wharves are the 
fine offices of the European traders, and the Standard Oil 
depot is visible amid clustering betel-nut trees. 

I find that the canals are responsible for two features 

7 


% 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 

of Bangkok—the croaking of numerous frogs and a variety 
of bad smells. Some of the klongs have drainage systems 
as modern as any to be found in Europe or America, but 
for the most part they are like so many open sewers and 
depend upon the tides to flush them out twice a day. At 
low tide the boats that line many of them are embedded 
in the mud. Whole families live and die on their boats, 
and when the tide is out the rubbish they have thrown 
overboard year after year lies exposed to view on the mud 
bottoms of the canals. Yet the people do not in the 
least mind taking their baths in these refuse-laden waters. 
Indeed, a daily bath is a part of their religion and, more¬ 
over, the heat makes it a necessity. 

The Siamese wash clothes and body all at once. The 
chief garment of the native dress is the panung, worn by 
both men and women and not removed when they take a 
dip in the river or the canals. It consists of a strip of 
cotton or silk three yards long and one yard wide, which is 
wound about the waist and hangs over the hips. The 
ends are brought between the legs and tucked in at the 
back of the waist, giving the garment a sort of trousers 
effect. The men complete this costume with a coat or 
bright scarf, while the women wear jackets or bodices, 
sometimes elaborately embroidered and stuck full of 
jewelled ornaments. I am told that among the wealthy 
Siamese it is customary to wear a different colour on each 
day of the week—red for Sunday, yellow for Monday, and 
so on through a seven-day scale of colours. Few of either 
sex wear shoes or stockings. 

In the evening one sees the natives bathing everywhere. 
The girls step down into the water in their panungs 
and sport about like mermaids. The men bathe in the 
8 


IN BANGKOK 


same way. The bathers also delight in standing or sit¬ 
ting on the platforms or floats in front of their houses and 
pouring buckets of water over themselves. I watched a 
Siamese maiden after she had had her bath to-day. She 
stood a minute to let the water run off; then, slipping 
another cloth loosely about her waist, she let the wet 
garment fall and wrung it out, to be dried for the next 
wearing. 

The river is the playground of the children of Bang¬ 
kok. They are veritable water rats, and even the smallest 
seem to be able to take care of themselves. Children of 
the poorer classes under ten wear no clothing, but nearly 
every one of them has some gold or silver jewellery upon 
his naked body. Most of them wear anklets and bracelets, 
as well as necklaces of gold or silver. The boy wears 
around his waist a string of charms of silver and jewels, 
while the girl has about her body a string from the centre 
of which a silver or gold heart depends like a miniature 
fig-leaf apron. When the mother carries her baby girl 
this metal heart, which is about the size of the bottom of a 
tumbler, has to be thrust aside, for here in Siam, as in 
most oriental countries, the native woman carries her 
naked infant astride her hip. 

The children of the better classes, those of the princes 
and nobles, often wear bands of woven gold and silver 
about the waist. Yesterday, as I patted the head of the 
son of one of the city officials, I noted over his waistcloth 
of bright green silk a heavy silver belt of woven links. It 
was at least an inch wide and of the most beautiful 
workmanship. The Siamese children seem to be quite as 
happy as though they had trousers, jackets, and under¬ 
wear, and the music of childish voices is as sweet here 


9 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 

on the waters of the Menam as it is anywhere in the 
world. 

The head of every Siamese child is shaved except for a 
kind of topknot on the crown. Among the upper classes 
this scalplock is well cared for. It is tied into a 
knot fastened with a gold pin and is sometimes wreathed 
with flowers. Between the ages of eleven and thirteen 
the lock is cut with great ceremony, and thus announce¬ 
ment is made that the boy has entered upon his young 
manhood and that the girl is ready for matrimony. Rela¬ 
tives and friends assemble, bringing gifts of jewellery 
and money, which are put aside as a wedding fund or 
dowry. In the case of a prince the celebration lasts for 
several days. 

Everybody in Siam smokes — men, women, and children. 
The favourite place for carrying cigars and cigarettes is 
behind the ear, just as our American grocery clerks carry 
their pencils. Yesterday I saw a naked boy of four 
smoking a cigarette. He was puffing away lustily at the 
one in his mouth, and he had two others yet unlit, one 
behind each ear. He apparently enjoyed his tobacco, 
and smoked and spit and spit and smoked as though it 
were an every-day matter, as I doubt not it was. His 
brown-skinned father stood beside him and when he 
started away he picked up the still smoking youngster, 
set him astride his hip, and walked off. 

The Siamese are not Negroes; they are not Chinese; 
they are not whites; and yet they have some points of re¬ 
semblance to the people of all these races. Their eyes are 
shaped like half almonds. The lids look like buttonholes 
spread wide apart, and out of the holes shine the blackest 
of lustrous black eyes. Their rich olive-brown skins turn 


io 


IN BANGKOK 


almost black under the hot sun, and their high cheek¬ 
bones mark them as tinged with the blood of the Mongol¬ 
ians. Their lips are much thicker and their noses much 
flatter than ours. Their hair is as black as the wings 
of the crows that fly by the thousands over their city. 
Both men and women wear it cut short all around the 
head, though the King’s preference for long-haired women 
is affecting the style among the ladies of the court. 

A Siamese woman is not, as a rule, a person of great 
beauty, though she is rather pretty while in her teens. 
The plump young girls 1 see every day sculling their boats 
on the water look attractive. They have straight, well- 
rounded bodies and are wonderfully supple. Their short 
black hair above their roguish dark eyes gives them 
a rakish, boyish appearance. They are a good-natured 
lot, but their smiles and laughter are likely to spoil any 
illusion one may have about them. Like the rest of the 
nation, old and young, they almost invariably have teeth 
stained black and tongues dyed violet from chewing the 
betel-nut. The betel-nut is a product of a variety of the 
areca palm. It looks not unlike a green walnut and has a 
spongy kernel with a bitter taste. The people chew little 
pellets of the powdered nut mixed with lime and rolled in 
pieces of betel leaf. The habit ruins the teeth and drives 
the gums almost down to the roots. From the mouth 
comes a disgusting trickle of blood-red saliva. The 
Siamese laugh at our objection to black teeth. “Any 
dog,” say they, “can have white teeth.” 

The women of Siam are old at thirty-five. After that, 
with their lean, scraggy necks and arms, their bare legs 
and busts, their short white hair rising brush-like above 
their wrinkled foreheads, and their cracked, dirty red lips 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


bordering black and half-toothless gums, they are the worst 
specimens of womankind I have yet seen. The old men 
are not much better to look at, for they have the same 
dried-up features and their bodies, all skin and muscle, 
seem more like skeletons wrapped in brown parchment 
than anything else. The younger men are more attrac¬ 
tive, but have not as fine figures as the maidens. 

As a rule the girls seem to be the workers of Siam. 
Even they, however, do not over-exert themselves. The 
housework in a Siamese home is light, and the family 
wants are few and easily satisfied. Clothes are washed 
without soap or starch and are never ironed. The people 
eat only two meals a day, living on a diet that is mostly 
rice and vegetables, with the occasional addition of fish. 
Meat is seldom eaten, because the Buddhist faith frowns 
upon the killing of animals. Food is cooked over coals 
in a box filled with earth or ashes, the chief utensils be¬ 
ing a rice pot, a kettle, and a frying pan. Many of the 
eatables are bought cooked. Rice forms the bread of the 
country and the Siamese knows nothing of the after joys 
of the underdone American pie crust or Boston baked 
beans. These Siamese girls never learn how to make cake 
or pudding; they have no roasts and no soups. When they 
eat, the family squat on the floor around a little table not 
more than a foot high, on which is the common dish. 
There are no individual plates, and no knives, forks, or 
spoons. The men, as lords of the household, get the 
first choice, the women taking what is left. In eating 
rice, the Siamese puts his whole hand into the steaming 
kettle, and, rolling the mass into a hard ball between his 
fingers, crowds it into his betel-stained mouth. 

1 visited one of the big markets of Bangkok yesterday. 


12 


IN BANGKOK 


It consisted of a great, low shed filled with platforms 
about a foot high and twenty feet square. Through the 
centre of each platform was a pillar which helped support 
the roof of the shed, and there were four women to every 
platform, each with her wares spread out upon palm 
leaves before her. The merchants squatted with their 
backs against the pillars and their bare legs crossed. 
Each had a betel box and some cigarettes beside her, and 
they either chewed or smoked all the time. Their wares 
were little piles of onions, pieces of cabbages, and other 
vegetables. The quantities were not measured except 
by the eye, and in place of paper the purchaser wrapped 
up his food in green palm leaves and fastened it with a 
little wooden skewer the size of a toothpick. 


13 


CHAPTER III 


KING RAMA AND HIS REALM 

I HAVE just returned from a visit to the palace of the 
King of Siam. I have gone by the golden elephants 
at the portals, walked past the soldiers at the gate, 
and viewed the reception rooms and the audience 
chambers. I have gone into the stables of his sacred 
white elephants and have given the ugly beasts a taste of 
heathen grass. Official letters from Washington gave me 
access to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and one of the 
English-speaking nobles connected with the ministry, a 
copper-coloured, black-moustached young Siamese, acted 
as my guide. 

The royal palace at Bangkok, which was built in the 
reign of Chulalongkorn, father of the present king, looks 
not unlike the homes of rulers in Europe. It is of three 
stories and in the French style, but has a typical Siamese 
roof covered with green and gold tiles. At a distance it 
appears to be made of marble, but a closer inspection 
shows that what seems to be stone is merely stucco. The 
golden elephants, each about half life-size, which guard 
the entrance, change as you come near them from massive 
gold to gilded iron. Between the elephants wide marble 
stairways lead to heavy doors of carved teakwood opening 
into a great vestibule. The ceiling of the vestibule is 
about forty feet high and the walls of polished teak are 
hung with ancient Siamese armour. 


14 



Though educated at Oxford and Sandhurst, and imbued with west¬ 
ern ideas, Rama VI pledged himself upon his coronation to uphold the 
ancient Buddhistic faith of his fathers. Theoretically a despotic mon¬ 
arch, he is in fact a wise and progressive ruler of his ten million subjects. 


























In the White Royal Palace roofed with green and gold tiles, King 
Rama receives distinguished guests and grants audiences to the diplo¬ 
mats of other nations and to the princes and officials of his realm. 



Early in May the Siamese minister of Agriculture, known for the 
day as the “Rice King,” opens the rice-sowing season and, following 
an ancient custom, ploughs a few furrows with a gilded plough and 
scatters handfuls of grain. 










KING RAMA AND HIS REALM 

At the right is the king’s council chamber. His throne 
is like a bed and he lies on his arm or sits Siamese fashion, 
a la Turk, while he receives his advisers and discusses 
matters of state. The ministers and nobles sit on leather- 
cushioned benches, and the portraits of Siamese heroes, 
done in oil by European artists, look down upon them from 
the walls. Just back of the throne there is a portrait of a 
shaven-headed, half-naked Buddhist bottle. It is a like¬ 
ness of the high priest of the kingdom, and thus the 
proceedings go on under the eye of a representative of 
Buddha himself. The priests, by the way, claim that 
the royal family are lineal descendants of Buddha. 

On the other side of the vestibule is a grand reception 
room fully as wide and nearly as long as the East Room 
of the White House at Washington. This is paved with 
marble mosaic and its ceiling, twice as high as that of the 
East Room, is gorgeously decorated with carvings of gold. 
Brilliant chandeliers depend from it and about the walls 
are oil paintings of the royal family. The furniture of 
this room is European and there are rare vases from 
Dresden, filigree work from Venice, and other objects of 
art from the western world. Beyond is still another great 
reception room, into which I was escorted by the Siamese 
noble who conducted me through the palace. Here two 
of the largest elephant’s tusks I have ever seen, wonder¬ 
fully carved, stand beside the mantel, and there are 
cabinets filled with gold knick-knacks, from card cases to 
betel boxes. 

Leaving these rooms, we crossed the vestibule and 
entered the throne room. This is a splendid hall with a 
lofty vaulted ceiling inlaid with many pieces of coloured 
glass like a Tiffany window. The light shining through 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


makes this coloured ceiling look as though it were made of 
jewels. The walls below are decorated with gilt frescoes. 
The three immense glass chandeliers, like those of the 
East Room of the White House, were made for the palace 
of Franz Josef of Austria, but were bought by Chulalong- 
korn. The floor is of marble mosaic and the King sits on a 
great chair on a rostrum at the back. Five steps lead up 
to it, and beside it are the royal umbrellas. Directly 
over it is a nine-story, pagoda-like umbrella of white and 
gold. 

Theoretically, at least, the man who holds forth in all 
this state is the absolute ruler of ten millions of people, 
over whom he has the power of life and death. His 
subjects are his slaves. He has the right to call them into 
his service either with or without pay and any man in 
Siam may be forced to give him either the whole or a part 
of his time. His word can throw a man into chains or 
put him to death; can deprive him of his property or rob 
him of his daughter. All the women of Siam are supposed 
to belong to him. He may tax the people as he pleases 
and he can spend tens of thousands of dollars in cremating 
a dead wife, in establishing a navy, or in gratifying any 
other whim that may be his. 

So much for theory. It is true that Rama VI, King of 
Siam, is one of the few absolute rulers left upon earth and 
that there is no democratic institution to say him nay. 
But in actual practice he exercises none of the tyrannical 
prerogatives that I have named, and is not at*all the kind 
of ruler that such absolute power usually breeds. I have 
not been so fortunate as to meet His Royal Highness. 
I have, however, met many men connected with the court, 
who are well informed about him and his kingdom. My 
16 


KING RAMA AND HIS REALM 


talks with them and with old residents of the country 
have given me almost as good an understanding of his 
personality as though I had interviewed him. A recent 
photograph of King Rama lies on the table before me; it 
is a picture of a pleasant, round-faced man of early middle 
age. He wears a plain military uniform, which seems to 
be his favourite dress, and he appears generally unassum¬ 
ing and likeable. 

I am told that King Rama is much impressed with his 
responsibility as head of his people. He is determined to 
lead them farther along in the paths of progress in which 
their feet were set in the time of his father, Chulalong- 
korn, and even of his grandfather, Mongkut. When 
Mongkut was heir to the Siamese throne, he was for years 
cheated out of the succession by one of his father’s wives. 
She had gained possession of the .treasury and had bought 
up enough votes in the council of nobles, without whose 
sanction no one could then take the imperial office, to 
give her own son the crown. For twenty-six years Mong¬ 
kut remained in a Buddhist monastery, where he learned 
Latin from the Jesuits, read and wrote English with the 
missionaries, and corresponded with men of letters in 
England and America. Thus, when at last he came to 
the throne, he was acquainted with western ideas and 
fired with an ambition to make his obscure little state one 
of the nations of the world. 

His son Chulalongkorn succeeded Mongkut at the age 
of fifteen, and reigned for fifty-eight years. Educated by 
European tutors, he had great respect for western ideals 
and institutions. He sent his son, Rama, the present 
king, to Sandhurst and Oxford, while ten of his other 
sons were educated at Eton. He established and en- 


17 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


dowed a full-fledged university at Bangkok, with depart¬ 
ments of law, medicine, and engineering, and even opened 
a college for women. A Harvard man. Professor Strobel, 
was employed as general adviser to the King and his 
government. When Strobel died of blood poisoning, due 
to an insect bite received in Egypt as he was on his way 
home for a vacation, another American was selected in his 
place. Moreover, Professor Strobel’s old mother was pen¬ 
sioned for life by the Siamese government. 

In Mongkut’s time, the person of the monarch was con¬ 
sidered so sacred that none dare approach him or remain 
in his presence save on hands and knees. At the first 
assembly convened by Chulalongkorn he commanded 
those in attendance to stand. Mongkut rode in a golden 
sedan chair carried on the shoulders of one hundred men 
in liveries of scarlet and gold. Chulalongkorn drove over 
the new macadam roads of his kingdom in a basket phae¬ 
ton drawn by twenty white ponies. When the present 
ruler returned from his studies and his travels abroad he 
brought back eighty-three different models of automo¬ 
biles of American and European makes. It was Rama, 
too, who introduced the typewriter into the kingdom. He 
was pleased with the first machine he saw as a youngster 
and ordered one made specially for him with a keyboard of 
Siamese characters. His father was delighted and de¬ 
creed that all manuscripts presented at court be typed on 
the new kind of machine. 

In 1911, in the presence of a number of representatives 
of the Powers formally invited to witness the ceremony, 
Rama VI assumed the Siamese crown. On that occasion 
he swore to rule as “ Buddha's prince." The kingdom that 
Rama inherited had an area nearly four fifths that of Texas, 
18 



In the upper Menam Valley primitive paddle wheels are worked on 
the principle of the treadmill to force the water along the irrigation 
ditches in the rice fields. Like nearly all the hard farm work in Siam, 
this task is done by women. 







The journey of the rafts of teak logs from the forests of upper Siam 
to the timber mills of Bangkok, which involves many a battle with 
strong currents and frequent tie-ups, may take four or five years. British 
companies hold most of the teak-lumbering concessions. 





KING RAMA AND HIS REALM 


with a population almost equal to that of the state of New 
York. It came into his possession intact, and without 
any strings upon it. During the last century, when the 
Powers were helping themselves to slices of China, Siam 
maintained her independence, although for years the 
British on the north and the French on the south watched 
for a chance to gobble her up between them. Now Eng¬ 
land, France, and Siam are restrained by treaties and 
common interests and Siam seems likely to remain Muang 
Thai, “ Land of the Free,” as the Siamese call it in recogni¬ 
tion of the fact that it has never been under foreign rule. 

The principal product of the country is rice, which is 
also the staple food of the people. After domestic needs 
are met there is an annual surplus of something over a 
million tons for export. Most of this business is handled 
from Bangkok, which, with the surrounding district, has 
eighty rice mills. The bulk of the grain comes down the 
rivers and through the canals that form a network over the 
whole country, but some is shipped to the capital by rail. 
Siam now has about fourteen hundred miles of govern¬ 
ment-owned railways. There is through service from 
Bangkok to Penang in the Federated Malay States and 
Singapore in the Straits Settlements. In the northern 
part of the country are dense forests which furnish valu¬ 
able teak, used by ship-builders and furniture makers all 
over the world. The forests are under control of a Brit¬ 
ish conservator appointed by the King and assisted by 
several British foresters. Siam has also extensive mineral 
resources, including deposits of tin, tungsten, coal, iron, 
and wolfram. Many of her young men are studying min¬ 
ing engineering. 

King Rama has extended his father's plans for the 
19 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


educational advancement of his people. It is said that 
every man in the kingdom can read and write, though the 
girls and women are mostly illiterate. The literacy of 
the men is partly due to their training under the Buddhist 
monks. King’s College, a boarding school for sons of 
the Siamese nobility, has been enlarged and the insti¬ 
tution for the daughters of nobles has quite as high a 
standard as have some of the best of our schools for girls. 
In the Civil Service School young men are trained for 
positions in the Department of the Interior. Many 
others are being sent abroad to complete their educations, 
and scholarships of fifteen hundred dollars a year are 
awarded annually for four-year courses in the colleges of 
Europe and America. Some of the prize men at Har¬ 
vard, Cornell, Columbia, Oxford, and Cambridge are from 
Siam. These Siamese youths often excel in athletics, too; 
one of the King’s brothers was coach of a crew at Oxford. 

Rama VI himself approves of athletic and military 
training. The Siamese Boy Scout troops are affiliated 
with the Wild Tigers, a body of fifty companies of young 
officials and other civilians organized for special training. 
As in most European countries to-day, universal military 
service prevails, and on a war basis the Siamese Army 
musters about eighty thousand horse and foot. Siam 
joined in the war against Germany in 1918 and in June 
of that year sent her regiments of yellow-skinned troops 
to take part in the great conflict. In the city of Bangkok 
is a white shaft erected to the memory of the Siamese who 
fell in the World War. Some say there was literally only 
one of him, as the troops under the flag of the White 
Elephant arrived too late to get into the fight. At any 
rate, Siam’s action won for her a place at the treaty- 


20 


KING RAMA AND HIS REALM 


making councils of Versailles, to which she sent a dele¬ 
gation to look after her interests. 

Two of the pet vices of Siam, which is, by the way, not 
an especially vicious country, have been attacked with 
vigour by the present king. These are opium smoking 
and gambling. In the past a large part of the govern¬ 
ment's revenue came from licensed gambling and the 
opium traffic. By increasing trade and by developing 
the resources of Siam, Rama’s government has been able 
to dispense with these sources of income. The opium 
traffic has been taken under strict control and gambling 
is no longer licensed or even officially sanctioned. 

I should say, however, that it will be a long time before 
the Siamese will be broken of the gambling habit. There 
is nothing that appeals more to these happy-go-lucky 
people than a game of chance. One of the favourites 
seems to be fantan and I have seen many Siamese col¬ 
lected in groups about mats presided over by the China¬ 
men who act as the bankers. Little shells are used 
instead of cash and the game is substantially the same as 
that played in China. Gambling is especially common 
among the people living along the river and it is not un¬ 
known, I am told, among the palace ladies. 

King Rama’s attitude toward the women of his country 
was regarded by his subjects as nothing short of revolu¬ 
tionary, and he is still regarded with wonder because he 
has but one wife. Among the ordinary Siamese the status 
of women is far above that in most Asiatic countries. 
They are not secluded and young men and girls meet with 
such freedom that usually they form attachments for 
each other which are taken into consideration when 
marriages are arranged by their parents. In case of a 


21 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


divorce the wife retains her dowry as well as the custody 
of half the children of the marriage. According to the 
Siamese the uneven numbers are the lucky ones, and it is 
the divorced wife who gets the first, third, and the rest of 
the odd-numbered offspring. Polygamy is permitted but 
does not generally exist among the mass of the people. 

In the earlier days the ladies of the royal household, 
however, had not so much freedom as had their common 
sisters. The sovereign was expected to have in his harem 
a member of every influential family in his domain; for it 
was thought that in no other way could he keep in close 
touch with his people and also hold in check any over- 
ambitious nobleman. Therefore, besides his several 
hundred wives, the Siamese king had a number of con¬ 
cubines and dancers, called collectively the “palace 
ladies.” These were kept secluded, appearing only at 
private gatherings and never at public functions. Even 
Chulalongkorn, father of the present king, had between 
seven and eight thousand wives and palace ladies. 

When the young Crown Prince returned from his stay 
abroad he was told that he might choose for himself a 
hundred or so of the most attractive of the court beauties. 
He astonished his father by declaring that he would marry 
only one wife and that he would marry for love alone. 
As a matter of fact, he remained a bachelor until eleven 
years after his coronation, when, in his forty-second year, 
he married his cousin, the Princess Lakshmi. Even be¬ 
fore his coronation he did away with the seclusion of the 
women of the royal household, and on that occasion the 
court ladies were everywhere in evidence—at the royal 
theatre, at the public receptions, and at the coronation 
ball. Many of them are now adopting European dress 


22 



Travelling troupes of entertainers follow the course of the canals 
through Siam, giving performances in the villages and towns. The 
plays are of gods and spirits and ancient national heroes. 









Along the tidal rivers the Siamese build their houses on tall bamboo 
stilts. The space underneath is given over to the family cows, pigs, and 
dogs, which feed on the scraps dropped down from above through the 
loosely laid floor. 





KING RAMA AND HIS REALM 


and, in short, Siamese court society is undergoing a com¬ 
plete revolution. 

Another example of the modernization of Siam under 
its present ruler is the decline in the glory of its famous 
white elephants. Though the white elephant is the 
imperial beast of the kingdom and his likeness still 
appears on the national flag, his former prestige has dis¬ 
appeared. Traditionally, he is supposed to be the em¬ 
bodied spirit of some ancient king or hero, and time was 
when the people worshipped him. In King Mongkut's 
day, for example, when a party of hunters reported the 
capture of a white elephant, the news spread like light¬ 
ning, and all Siam was wild with delight. The monarch 
dispatched an escort of great personages to mount guard 
over the royal animal, which was tied by silken ropes in 
the forest where he had been found. There for a period 
he was tamed and taught the proper etiquette for his ex¬ 
alted role. He was then conducted along special roads 
cut through the forest to the former capital at Ayuthia, 
where he was put aboard a floating wooden palace hung 
with crimson curtains and carpeted with gilded matting. 

All the way down the Menam to Bangkok obsequious 
attendants bathed him, perfumed him, fanned and 
flattered him. The sweetest of sugar-cane, the brownest 
of wheat-cakes, the tenderest of grass were served him 
from trays of gold and silver, and in his drink were fra¬ 
grant jessamine flowers. King and court met him with 
appropriate honours and he was baptized by the priests, 
being christened with the name and title chosen for him 
by the sovereign. This name was inscribed on a piece of 
sugar-cane, which was extended to the elephant, who 
swallowed it at once, thus indicating that he accepted the 


23 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


honours bestowed upon him. Then he was inducted into 
a palace scarcely less gorgeous than that of royalty itself. 
He had his own special retinue some of whom looked after 
his wardrobe of velvet and silk coverings embroidered in 
gold and jewels. Thus he passed his days, at enormous 
expense to the kingdom. 

It might be, however, that for some reason the King 
would present one of the royal white elephants to a cour¬ 
tier. Indeed, it was said that he made such a gift only to 
one whom he wished to ruin, for the expense of maintaining 
the pampered beast in the style to which he was accus¬ 
tomed was guaranteed to bankrupt even the wealthiest 
noble. This, by the way, is supposed to be the origin of 
the expression “to have a white elephant on one’s hands.” 

Well, the three scraggy old fellows I saw in the royal 
stables this morning were a sorry sight compared to those 
of other days. As everybody knows, there is no such 
thing as a really white elephant, but some are found with 
pale gray or pinkish skins and these are called “white.” 
The only white parts of the animals I saw were their long, 
flopping ears, which were spotted with the pale blotches of 
some skin disease. The beasts were in dirty stables and 
were attended by dirty keepers, and there was not the 
slightest sign of imperial pomp about them. The last one 
to be captured came down in a reinforced freight car from 
Ayuthia to Bangkok. The King neither went himself nor 
sent the royal elephants to meet him, though in the 
evening His Highness did visit the stables and give the 
newcomer a title beginning with “Count.” I think it 
is probable that the King’s elephant stables are now 
maintained solely out of regard for the superstitions of 
some of the more ignorant Siamese. 


24 


CHAPTER IV 


SOME SHRINES AND RITES OF SIAM 

I N SIAM about one in every ten of the male population 
between the ages of sixteen and eighty has a shaved 
head and wears a yellow robe. Counting both 
monks and novices, there are in this country close to 
two hundred thousand Buddhist priests, and, judging 
from the numbers I have seen in Bangkok, I think about 
half of them must make their headquarters here. They 
wear yellow robes because when Buddha went forth from 
his palace to beg his way among men he donned this dress. 
By taking it he humbled himself to the level of the low¬ 
liest, and so it is worn by the Buddhist priests to this 
day as an evidence of their humility. 

The priests are under the immediate control of the King, 
who gives them every year the material for their yellow 
gowns, but they are dependent upon the public for their 
one meal a day. Every morning the streets of the city are 
alive with priests going quietly about with their begging 
bowls, which they hold out for rice as they pass along. 
They never ask for food and if it is not offered the bowl is 
quickly withdrawn, so that any one who wants to con¬ 
tribute has to be in a hurry about it. In fact, these men 
have almost a supercilious air as they stand while rice is 
dropped into their bowls, and the reason for this is the 
idea that the giver and not the receiver is benefited by the 
gift. Buddhists are taught that those who give to the 


25 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


support of their religion acquire merit for themselves in 
so doing, and that the priests really render a service in 
affording such an opportunity. 

The regular priesthood numbers about ninety thousand, 
most of whom serve the government by conducting 
schools. They charge no fees for their instruction, but 
the pupils are expected to attend the temples and perform 
certain menial duties for their teachers. Every Siamese 
youth is obliged to spend some part of his life in the priest¬ 
hood. His service may not be longer than three months, 
but during that time he must conform strictly to the rules, 
even to the extent of begging his food. Like his father and 
his grandfather before him, the present King has gone about 
in a yellow robe, with shaven head and unsandalled feet, 
asking his one meal a day of the people over whom he 
is now absolute ruler. With other young men he has 
studied the tenets of Buddha in the Temple of the Emer¬ 
ald Idol. Immediately on ascending to the throne he 
announced that his reign should be devoted to upholding 
and strengthening “Our Holy Buddhistic Faith.” 

There are in his kingdom, which, you remember, is 
smaller than Texas, no less than fourteen thousand 
Buddhist temples. Bangkok fairly bristles with their 
gilded spires, and an aviator flying low over the capital 
would have to look sharp to dodge them. On the only 
elevation in the city rises Wat Sa Ket, built upon an 
artificial hill made of brick. Its spires are studded with 
sapphires and its porches are guarded by huge stone images. 
From it one gets a fine view of Bangkok, with its banyans, 
its bamboos, and its tamarind trees, pierced here and 
there by four- and even six-story government and office 
buildings and department stores, and by the spires of 
26 


SOME SHRINES AND RITES OF SIAM 


still other wats, or temples. Curving around the city is 
the majestic Menam with its teeming river life. 

The Buddhist temples of Bangkok are costly beyond 
description. The finest of them all is the Wat Phra Keo, 
or Temple of the Emerald Idol, which is connected with the 
palace of the King. Here he worships daily and it was 
here that he declared himself Defender of the Faith of his 
people. Its lofty spire is made of coil after coil of masonry 
covered with gold leaf. All the woodwork of the temple, 
inside and out, is overlaid with gold leaf. I visited it 
yesterday. Passing by the armed men at the gate of the 
palace, my guide conducted me beyond great walls into a 
vast court filled with buildings faced with painted por¬ 
celain and decorated with gold and pieces of coloured 
glass. Some of the structures clustered about the temple 
had massive square pillars enclosing wide cloisters and 
others rose story after story into spires decorated with 
thousands of figures of men and beasts, and showing here 
and there golden images of the sacred elephant. Around 
the base of these buildings and in the courtyard of the wat 
were marble statues of men of all nations in the most 
curious costumes. I noted a Dutchman with his pipe, 
a Chinese mandarin with his umbrella, and a daimio of 
Japan with his two swords. At one gate of the temple 
there is a statue said to represent St. Peter. I was told 
that King Mongkut bought it of an Italian sculptor, along 
with a marble Ceres, taking them both, I doubt not, be¬ 
cause they were cheap. It seems strange to see St. Peter 
attending the gate of a Buddhist temple, but then there 
are many strange things in Bangkok. 

Entering one of the halls through doors of ebony inlaid 
with mother of pearl, I found ranged below golden statues 
27 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 

of Buddha a mixture of rubbish gathered from the four 
corners of the earth. Here are glass oil lamps from Amer¬ 
ica beside china candlesticks from Germany. Old Dutch 
clocks and glass fruit-dishes of the ten-cent-store variety 
are set side by side with costly Dresden vases and real 
objects of art in gold and silver. There are candles of 
every size burning in all sorts of candlesticks, some as big 
around as the body of a man and some plated with gold. 
The largest candles will burn for weeks before a Buddha, 
and their flickering flame is supposed to expiate a multi¬ 
tude of sins. From the ceiling, which is a mass of gold 
fretwork, hang magnificent chandeliers. The high altar 
is pyramidal in shape and sixty feet high. Upon it sits 
the Emerald Idol, an image of Buddha twelve inches high 
and eight inches wide. Tne superstitious believe that Bud¬ 
dha himself alighted upon this spot in the form of a great 
emerald and by a flash of lightning conjured into being 
the temple and the altar for his house and throne. Close 
observers have declared, however, that the image is carved, 
not from emerald, but from jade. The collar and the hair 
are of the purest gold and while the metal was in a mol¬ 
ten state diamonds, sapphires, rubies, emeralds, and other 
precious stones were embedded in it. Below the Emerald 
Idol there are numerous other images of gold plate. 

In the rooms opening off from this great hall I saw 
monks clad in yellow, sitting cross-legged on the ground or 
lying down with their heads upon pillows. Many were 
studying long strips of palm-leaf an inch wide, upon which 
were printed the prayers of their religion. In the temple 
I looked at the holy fire burning on the altar, and my guide 
told me that this fire was used for lighting the funeral 
pyres of royalty. It went out about a century ago, and 
28 


SOME SHRINES AND RITES OF SIAM 


the people of Bangkok were in despair, until one of the 
buildings was struck by lightning and from the heaven¬ 
sent flame they rekindled the fire which has been burning 
ever since. 

The next temple I visited was that of the Sleeping 
Buddha. Here also there is a wilderness of buildings 
crowned by lofty spires, gorgeous and gaudy with white 
stucco, gilt, coloured porcelains, and bits of glass of many 
hues. The Sleeping Buddha, which is one of the largest 
idols in the world, is one hundred and fifty feet long. A 
room sixteen feet wide makes a good-sized bedroom, yet 
you could not put the two soles of this Buddha's feet on a 
floor sixteen feet square. Buddha lies on his side, resting 
his great head on his arm. The arm near the elbow is as 
big around as the largest oak tree you have ever seen, and 
his gilded ears, if stood upon end, would reach about four 
feet higher than the average ceiling. His body is, I judge, 
nearly fifty feet thick at the waist. The legs of the statue 
are almost sixty feet long, and its toe nails measure about 
fifteen inches. Upon these are engraven the ten attri¬ 
butes of Buddha, and the soles of the feet are covered with 
bas-reliefs inlaid with mother of pearl. The figure rests 
upon a platform about four feet high. The body is built 
of brick heavily coated with lacquer and covered with 
gold leaf. 

Less than a hundred miles to the southwest of Bangkok, 
on the side of the Palace Mountain at Pechaburi, lies the 
companion of this Sleeping Buddha. Travellers on the 
trains through that part of Siam may look out upon the 
colossal image close to the track there. This figure, too, 
is made of bricks overlaid with gilded lacquer. The right 
arm, which is folded under the head, is supported by 


29 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


several immense pillows. The ears droop to the shoulders. 
The Siamese say that when a child shall be born with 
fingers and toes all the same length and with ears coming 
down to its shoulders, then another Buddha will have 
come into the world. So far, however, none has ever 
seen such an infant. 

The Peguans of Burma living in Siam make annual 
pilgrimages to the Sleeping Buddha at Pechaburi, and the 
women used to anoint the feet with perfumes and fragrant 
oil and then wipe them with their beautiful hair as they 
chanted the praises of the Enlightened One. But the 
Siamese made so much fun of them that finally they gave 
up the custom. According to tradition, there was once a 
door in the back of this idol giving access to a room filled 
with treasure hidden there in a time of danger to the king¬ 
dom. No trace of a door is to be seen to-day, but perhaps 
the treasure does lie buried beneath the guardian image. 

Siam is the land of cremation. All people here burn their 
dead, for the soul of him whose corpse is not burned is sup¬ 
posed to go directly to hell, there to slave forever for a 
dog-faced god with a human body whose feet are in the 
brimstone flames. The uncremated dead are compelled to 
carry water in baskets over a long bridge to pour upon 
these hot feet, and they are denied further transmigration 
of soul. Cremation is thus the only means by which a 
soul may go on through its cycle of transmigrations, until 
it at last reaches the Buddhist heaven, Nirvana, the state 
of complete peace. In Siam it costs more to be buried 
than to be married, and an Irish wake is nothing to the 
festivities of a first-class Siamese funeral. As 1 write this, 
the sound of the carpenters near by is plainly heard. 
They are putting up a huge funeral pyre, and are building 
30 



The Siamese wat, or temple, consists of a number of buildings scat¬ 
tered about a large park-like enclosure. In connection with the tem¬ 
ples pagodas of solid masonry are raised over relics of Buddha, and 
guarded by gigantic, grotesque figures. 






When the Siamese cremate a king, they spend months in preparations. 
Besides the elaborate structure for the funeral pyre, prayer towers and pa¬ 
vilions for royal mourners, foreign diplomats, and native officials are 
constructed at great cost. 





















SOME SHRINES AND RITES OF SIAM 


a structure finer than the home of a well-to-do Siamese 
family. A nobleman has died. His body, which has been 
kept for some weeks, is now to be burned. All of his clan 
will celebrate the occasion, and there will be music, danc¬ 
ing, theatricals, and feasting. 

The most splendid funeral of all is, of course, that of a 
king. King Mongkut’s obsequies cost more than one 
hundred and fifty thousand dollars. When his successor, 
Chulalongkorn, was dying, he requested that while his 
cremation ceremonies should be marked with a magni¬ 
ficence befitting his rank, there should be no unnecessary 
expenditure and that any funds thus saved should be used 
for the advancement of the kingdom. His wishes were 
respected and every church, hospital, and school in Siam, 
regardless of creed, received useful gifts bought with the 
money left over after all bills were paid. On the occasion 
of the funeral the special buildings were smaller than usual, 
though they were even more beautiful than those set up 
for the cremation of Mongkut. For months beforehand 
the artisans exercised their greatest skill. The funeral 
structures formed a group about a central gilded tower 
thirty-eight feet square at the base and rising two hundred 
and forty feet into the air. This was the Phra Meru, pre¬ 
pared for the casket and the funeral pyre. At its corners 
were four prayer towers, while surrounding all were pa¬ 
vilions for the King, the Queen Mother, the foreign diplo¬ 
mats, and other officials of rank. 

In the past the body of a monarch was not cremated 
until a year after death, but the final ceremonies for 
Chulalongkorn took place six months after he had breathed 
his last. Meantime, the embalmed body, placed in a 
sitting posture in a copper casket enclosed in one of gold, 


3i 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


was kept in state in a little chapel within the palace 
grounds. Buddhist services were held before it daily 
and representatives of all nations came to leave their 
offerings of flowers, gold and silver wreaths, and artifi¬ 
cial trees made of gold. 

The ceremonies and celebrations at the time of the 
cremation lasted for a whole week. On the final day the 
jewelled casket was lowered from its place and taken to 
the Phra Meru. In the procession were the state troops; 
bands playing Chopin's and Handel’s Funeral Marches; 
the scarlet-clad musicians of the palace guard band with 
silver trumpets, metal gongs, and conch shells; and the 
Holy Prince, or High Priest, dressed in his yellow robes 
and seated in a gilded car drawn by one hundred and fifty 
men in scarlet liveries. In his hands he held a silver rib¬ 
bon, one end of which was fastened to the royal casket in 
the car behind him, so that hallowed influences might pass 
from him to the dead. Behind the funeral car walked 
King Rama VI dressed in his field-marshal’s uniform. 
After the members of the royal family came the repre¬ 
sentatives of Great Britain, France, Russia, the United 
States, and the other Powers, and the officers of the 
Siamese government departments. 

Arrived at the Phra Meru, the King entered his pavilion, 
the coffin was lowered from its car to a gorgeous palanquin, 
and the procession marched three times around the tower. 
Then the casket was drawn up on an inclined plane to the 
pyre. For a time it was hidden behind golden curtains 
while the outer casket was removed and replaced by one 
of sandalwood. At sunset the Meru was lighted with 
electric lights and the curtains were pushed back. The 
conch shells and the quaint drums and other ancient 
32 


SOME SHRINES AND RITES OF SIAM 

instruments burst into music as the King ascended the 
pyre and applied the sacred flame. 

Next morning the pyre was extinguished and the royal 
ashes were gathered and sprinkled with perfume. En¬ 
closed in an urn of gold set with diamonds, they were 
escorted in a solemn procession to the chapel where the 
body had been in state. They were removed a few days 
later to their final resting-place in a Buddhist monastery 
erected by Chulalongkorn as a monument to his long and 
enlightened reign. 

Far different from the scenes attending the cremation 
of royalty was the one I viewed many years ago in the 
courtyard of the beautiful Wat Sa Ket. I shall never 
forget the horrible sight I beheld when I entered the great 
enclosure set aside for the disposal of the pauper and 
criminal dead. At that time it was the practice to cast 
their bodies into this place, and leave them lying on the 
ground to be devoured by the dogs and by the flocks of 
vultures that continually circled overhead. All about me 
were half-eaten corpses, and as I looked I saw a dozen 
gray-winged scavengers fighting with the hungry-eyed 
dogs for a mass that had once been a human being. Be¬ 
side the bloody corpses being fought over by dogs and 
buzzards lay quantities of human skulls and odd legs and 
arms of the dead of yesterday. Within the court were 
several low brick buildings. Out of one of them came 
a toothless old hag with gray hair and wrinkled skin, who 
motioned me to come inside. I did so, and there along 
a wall were a dozen grinning skulls. She wanted me to 
buy one, as a souvenir! 

Then she led me away to another part of the grounds and 
showed me some coffins which she said had contained the 


33 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


bodies of cholera victims. I was told that many of the 
poor Siamese used to dedicate their bodies to the vultures 
of the Wat Sa Ket, and that it was customary to burn the 
bones after the birds had stripped them clean. Next we 
peered into a cave where there was a small golden Buddha. 
Meantime, a little child had come up and was standing 
beside the old hag. I could not help being struck by the 
contrast between the little one’s freshness and all the 
horrors amid which she was growing up. Inside the en¬ 
closure, not far from the clustering dogs and vultures, was 
a hut and I caught the gleam of a fire. The woman was 
cooking dinner for herself and her child there! 

I am glad to say that this horrible institution has been 
abolished and the Wat Sa Ket is to-day unmarred by its 
former ghastly spectacle. 


34 


CHAPTER V 


Siam’s french neighbour 

O NCE more I am sweltering at sea off the coast 
of Siam, headed southward in the gulf named 
for that country, and on my way around the 
great Malay Peninsula that dangles down into 
the Indian Ocean until it almost touches the Dutch Island 
of Sumatra. I am bound for Rangoon, there to begin my 
travels in the Indian Empire. By water, it is a journey of 
four thousand miles from Bangkok, but by airplane I 
could made it in a flight of hardly one sixth of that dis¬ 
tance. 

To the east, as I gaze out from the deck of my steamer, 
lies the coast of Cambodia, whence the French have long 
looked with land-hungry eyesupon the adjoining kingdom 
of Siam. Cambodia is now subject to the government at 
Paris, and with Tongking, Annam, and Cochin China, 
goes to make up the French territorial holdings in south¬ 
eastern Asia. 

Our steamer does not call at any port of French Indo- 
China, but on another voyage to this part of the world I 
visited its chief city, Saigon. Saigon is in Cochin China, 
which, though it is the smallest of the French Asiatic pos¬ 
sessions, is the most prosperous and the centre of French 
influence in the Orient. I found Saigon a surprisingly 
beautiful place, but also the hottest I had ever been in. 
It was hotter than Java, on the edge of the Equator, 


35 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 

whence I had just come. The thermometer registered 
one hundred in the shade, and at night the warm moist 
air made me feel as though I were wrapped in steaming 
hot blankets. 

Saigon is as well built as any city of its size in the tropics 
and it is one of the most attractive places in this part of the 
world. It is situated on the river Saigon, a branch of the 
Donai, about forty miles from the sea. It is not far from 
the great Mekong River, which rises in China and flows 
south more than a thousand miles between French Indo- 
China and Siam until it enters Cambodia, and then sweeps 
on in a mighty stream to the China Sea. The Saigon River 
is as wide as the Mississippi at St. Louis, and deep enough 
for the largest steamers, and it is connected with the 
Mekong by canals. The surrounding country is flat and 
cut up by waterways. Near the sea the land is so low 
that the farmhouses are built on piles to keep them out 
of the water, but there is a slight elevation as you go up to 
Saigon. The way is through plains as rich as those of the 
Nile Valley. The river is lined with thickets of palm 
trees. There are coconut groves here and there, and back 
of these lie vast fields of rice and other crops. 

The first evidences of European occupation I noticed as 
we came up the stream were the great oil tanks on the left, 
and a little later I could see the masts of the shipping at 
the docks of Saigon. The rosy spires of a great cathedral 
stood out against the sky, and soon we were winding 
about between water craft of all kinds into the heart of 
the city. 

Landing on the wharf, I started off for a stroll. It was 
easy to see that the French rule Saigon. There were 
French signs over the stores, French buildings in the busi- 
36 


SIAM’S FRENCH NEIGHBOUR 


ness part of the town, and French people everywhere. 
A dozen chic French girls dressed in Parisian styles and 
with parasols in their hands met our steamer. The cus¬ 
toms officers were French, and there were scores of officials 
and merchants spick and span in white duck and white 
helmets, who spoke to us in French as we went ashore. 
The natives about the docks spoke pidgin-French. 

The streets are wide, and so well macadamized that the 
red earth upon them is as hard as iron and as smooth as a 
floor. Trees have been planted along the roadways in 
such numbers that even from the river one can see little of 
the city except the red-tiled roofs of the houses and the 
rose-coloured spires of the cathedral showing out of the 
green. Some of the trees have leaves like enormous fans, 
which whisper to you as you walk the streets; some bear 
coconuts, and others are great masses of blossoms of the 
brightest colours. One is the flamboyant, or torch tree, 
such as I have seen on the Amazon and in the Philippines. 
It is as tall as the biggest oak and blazes with satiny 
blossoms of fire. There are other trees equally large bear¬ 
ing blue flowers, and many slender betel palms with fan¬ 
like branches thrusting out of their tops. I spent some 
time in the Botanical Gardens, which are said to be sur¬ 
passed by those of Java alone. 

The stucco houses are painted in bright colours—red, 
pink, yellow, and blue—and the public buildings are so 
substantial and well built as to reflect credit on the 
French. Indeed, they have given Saigon many splendid 
improvements. Here a great bridge spans the Saigon 
River, there a steel structure crosses a canal. Along the 
wharves is a dry dock big enough to float the largest of 
warships. The city has cable, telegraph, and telephone 


37 



FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


services, and the principal streets are well illuminated by 
arc lights. The Saigon marine hospital would be worthy 
of any port. 

Saigon has in the neighbourhood of eighty thousand 
people, of whom only about four thousand are Europeans. 
The natives seem to be a cross between the Chinese and 
the Malays. Every crowd is a succotash of races. There 
are many short, homely women, with yellow skins and jet- 
black hair, who would remind you of the girls we saw in 
Siam. They wear jackets and pantaloons, some having 
chemises falling almost to the feet. Other women dress 
like those of Burma, and still others wear sarongs like the 
Javanese. Some of the men wear Chinese costumes, some 
Javanese, and some a mixture of both. 

Everywhere there are half-naked children of all shades 
of yellow and brown. The babies have on no clothing and 
are carried about astride the hips of their mothers. The 
women and little girls decorate themselves with collars or 
hoops of silver, gold, or brass about their necks, and many 
young women have their fingers covered with rings. I 
counted as many as five on one finger of a girl I passed. 
It is the custom to put gold and silver bracelets and 
anklets on the children. I saw a four-year-old girl dressed 
solely in three gold anklets, two gold bracelets, and ten 
finger rings. 

Unlike the Siamese, most of the natives of Cochin China 
•wear their hair long, putting it up in a knot on the back 
of the head. The men bind a cloth about their heads to 
keep their hair in place, while the women plaster down their 
tresses with oil. The usual hat among the lower classes 
is a conical one of straw, either snow-white or oiled to a 
rich yellow. 


38 



As a rice exporter French Indo-China is second only to Burma. The 
crop is cultivated largely by the Annamese, while the milling and export¬ 
ing are handled chiefly by the Chinese. 




The nearest the Indo-Chinese have come to a threshing machine is a 
frame-work studded with iron teeth through which rice is pulled to strip 
off the grain. More usually the crop is threshed by being trampled by 
oxen, or by beating the stalks. 



SIAM'S FRENCH NEIGHBOUR 


Every one chews the betel-nut, and even the prettiest 
of the girls carry quids in their cheeks. One of the indus¬ 
tries of Saigon is preparing the lime to be mixed with the 
betel-nut. It is obtained from shells which are burned in 
great kilns. 

Saigon is the halfway station between the Chinese and 
Indian worlds, and one finds there many of the character¬ 
istics and customs of both. Much of the business is done in 
bazaar-like cells similar to those of Calcutta and Bombay. 
In them dark-faced Hindus squat in the midst of goods 
calling out to the foreigner: “Sahib, please buy!" Out¬ 
side the market houses are money changers and many 
jewellery stores, for the people put most of their savings 
into bracelets, rings, and anklets. 

The chief money changers are Klings, as black as the 
ace of spades, from southern Hindustan. They sit behind 
tables with little stacks of coins—gold, silver, and copper— 
before them. The local currency is in silver and the high¬ 
est denomination, the piastre, is equivalent to about fifty 
cents. 

I spent some time going through the markets. A num¬ 
ber of the dealers were girls in black clothes, each with a 
collar of silver or brass about her neck and silver bands 
around her wrists and ankles. Many of the women were 
sewing and Chinese cobblers were squatting on the stones 
outside mending shoes. In the meat market I saw a 
score of Chinese butchers cutting up pork and beef and 
selling the meat by the pound. They were bare to the 
waist and their fat yellow backs were beaded with perspira¬ 
tion. Some of them wore bracelets of jade, silver, or gold. 

A few miles from Saigon is the native town of Cholon 
which is considerably larger than Saigon itself. The 

39 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


two are connected by a steam tramway over which trains 
run every few minutes. The round trip is eight miles and 
the first-class fare is equal to nine cents, American. 

Leaving the city on this line, one rides through a vast 
Chinese graveyard. The ground is peppered with tombs 
and mounds and the road winds its way through the 
graves. In twenty minutes the train pulls into Cholon. 
In my walk through the town I noticed that at least half 
the people were Chinese. The more important of the 
business houses belonged to them, and most of the 
goods on sale had come from China. I looked in vain for 
anything valuable of native manufacture. The porcelain 
seemed to be from Canton, as were also the silks. I saw 
French watches and clocks in some of the stores, and 
among the dry goods were stuffs from England, Germany, 
and France. There was little sign of American trade. 

Cholon has a number of big rice mills, which handle a 
large part of the chief crop of this region. The soil of 
Indo-China is rich and in the vast quantities of rice it 
exports it ranks second only to Burma, the leading rice 
exporter of the world. Enough rice goes out of Saigon 
every year to give a pound to every man, woman, and 
child on earth. Notwithstanding this, I am told that 
less than half of the rice land is cultivated. The French 
say that they hope to make the country the bread basket 
for China, Japan, and the Philippines, and they are rapidly 
succeeding. At present, however, the best of the rice mills 
are owned by Chinese rather than Frenchmen. 

Indeed, the French are now doing much to develop their 
colonies. The telegraph lines reach to all parts of Cochin 
China, and the colony is connected with Singapore and 
Hong-Kong by cable. The postal system has been ex- 


40 


SIAM’S FRENCH NEIGHBOUR 


tended throughout the country and subsidized mail 
steamers ply into the interior. 

The French have altogether in Indo-China a territory 
greater than California and Oregon combined, with a 
population of nearly twenty millions, among whom are 
some of the least known and most backward peoples on 
earth. Cochin China, while only about the size of West 
Virginia, has nearly four and one half million inhabitants. 
Just back of it is Cambodia, as big as Ohio, while to the 
north is Annam, bigger than Cochin China and Cambodia 
combined. Still farther north is the province of Tongking, 
which with the protectorate of Laos is larger than all 
France. The French are trying to extend the railroads of 
Tongking into China so as to claim the southern part of 
that country as a sphere of their influence. But 1 should 
say that they have a big empire to develop in their own 
territory without seeking control over areas adjoining. 
Tongking, especially, has rich mines of copper, iron, tin, 
zinc, silver, and lead, as well as some of the richest coal 
deposits of southern Asia. 

It is in Tongking that the French Governor-General of 
Indo-China resides. He has his capital at Hanoi, about 
one hundred and ten miles up the Song-koi, or Red River. 
Hanoi is a town of more than seventy-five thousand people, 
of whom less than a thousand are Europeans and about 
fifteen hundred are Chinese. The remainder are Anna- 
mese. The capital has steamship connection with Hong- 
Kong, and steamers run on up the Red River as far as the 
boundary of Yunnan, China. 

Notwithstanding its small European population, Hanoi 
is a lively place, and has a good deal of the social atmos¬ 
phere of the western world. It has French newspapers, a 

4 1 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


race course, a public band, and a club. At the endowed 
theatre, companies of French actors present the best 
plays. In the late afternoons the cafe tables about the 
Hotel Metropole remind one of Paris, for around them are 
seated French men and women, talking and sipping their 
wine just as if they were at home. There are several 
large government offices besides the barracks, a hospital, 
and the residence of the Governor-General. Many new 
streets have been laid out and planted with trees. They 
are lighted by electricity and most of them are drained. 
At Hanoi the Red River is about a mile in width and the 
districts near the river look not unlike the waterfront of 
Saigon. 

Between the French quarter and the native town lies 
the Little Lake with a white pagoda rising in the middle of 
the waters. The Annamese call this the “Lake of the 
Great Sword,” for from it rose the blade with which Le- 
Loi, one of the national heroes, once freed Tongking from 
the Chinese. When its work was done the sword returned 
to the lake in the form of a jade-green dragon. 

The native city of Hanoi is composed of one hundred and 
six villages, each of which was formerly devoted to some 
particular trade. The ancient guilds still persist to some 
extent, and certain streets are given over to the different 
crafts. In Brass Street the metal workers tap away, 
making vases and pots and kettles and trays. In the 
Street of Cups, plates and teapots and little teacups with¬ 
out handles are for sale, while on the long Street of the 
Paper Village men may be seen treading pulp in big tubs 
and manufacturing the finished product. There are, be¬ 
sides, Sugar Street, Cotton Street, the Street of Sails, and 
others. 


42 


SIAM’S FRENCH NEIGHBOUR 


Hanoi is the headquarters of the military force, the 
Governor-General having under his command between 
forty and fifty thousand troops stationed in different parts 
of the country. Most of the soldiers are natives, although 
there are a few French regiments of infantry, marines, 
and artillery, and an airplane squadron. There is also a 
native militia. The Governor-General rules with the aid 
of his council and so many subordinate officials that it is 
said that nearly every Frenchman in Tongking is an officer 
or a soldier. His Excellency has more power in French 
China than has the British Viceroy in India. 

South of Tongking and lying along the South China 
Sea is the Kingdom of Annam, which is also under the 
protection of the Governor-General of French Indo-China. 
The ruler is Khai-Dinh, whose name means “Era of 
Peace,” and he enjoys nominal sway over six million 
people. His throne is of gold, his state robes are of rich 
brocades in the imperial shade of yellow, and on his head 
he wears a marvellous nine-dragon crown. He lives in 
oriental luxury surrounded by an abject court and numer¬ 
ous wives and concubines. In actual fact, his power 
scarcely extends beyond his gorgeous palace, for the 
French resident and his council do the real work of govern¬ 
ing. Provincial chiefs are chosen by Khai-Dinh, but all 
the native officials are under the eye of the resident, who 
may annul any act of the puppet king. 

The capital of Annam is Hue, a walled city on the Hue 
River, some distance back from the coast. The city 
proper stands on a square island, with the river on three 
sides and a canal on the fourth. The government officials 
live within fortifications built on this island by the French. 
Here are the courts of justice, the observatory, the library, 


43 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


the mandarins' college, and the palace of the council of 
state. Farther back, inside another wall, are the palaces 
of the King and his harem. These palaces are somewhat 
like those of Peking, being covered with yellow tiles. 
Only the King has a right to a yellow roof, the nobles 
being restricted to red. In the suburbs of Hue and that 
part of the town where the common people live all the 
buildings are small and dilapidated. 

The people along the coast of Annam and in the towns 
are known as Annamese, while the inhabitants of the 
hill country are called the Mois. The latter are afraid of 
the floods of the lowlands and have steadily refused to 
move down from their mountainous region, which they 
believe they have inherited directly from Mother Eve. 
They live in constant fear of tigers and evil spirits of all 
kinds. The terror of tigers is shared by their more civil¬ 
ized neighbours, the Annamese. The tiger is called the 
“ King of the Mountain," “Lord of the Forest," or simply 
“My Lord," for the wonderful beast is supposed to hear 
anything that is said about him even at a distance of a 
thousand leagues and it would be terrible if he were to 
catch any insulting remarks. On the edge of the moun¬ 
tainous region little altars are to be seen. These are 
placed there to gain favour from the forest spirits and also 
to win the good will of the tiger. Every passing traveller 
leaves some offering upon them, be it nothing more than a 
banana. 

Between Cochin China and Siam is the province of 
Cambodia, easily reached from Saigon by the Mekong 
River. The people of Cambodia are much like the Sia¬ 
mese, and they were in the past far superior to any others 
of southeastern Asia. The ruins of the ancient city of 

44 


SIAM’S FRENCH NEIGHBOUR 

Angkor are almost equal to those of Java or India. The 
Cambodians are Buddhists, like the Siamese. They be¬ 
lieve in polygamy and every rich man has numerous wives. 

As I write, Sisowath, the King of Cambodia, is the 
world’s oldest living monarch. His eighty-fourth birth¬ 
day was celebrated with great pomp and ceremony last 
August. He dwells within a walled enclosure in his capi¬ 
tal city of Pnom-Penh, surrounded by five or six hundred 
women, who perform every service for him. He main¬ 
tains at great expense a big troupe of dancers composed of 
the most beautiful and graceful maidens of his kingdom. 
The French, however, relieve him of all the cares of state 
and His Majesty acts as a kind of rubber stamp for the 
decrees of the council under the French protectorate. 


45 


CHAPTER VI 


BURMA AND ITS CAPITAL 

C OMING up to Rangoon from the sea I travelled 
along one of the greatest of the world's great 
rivers. The Irrawaddy rises somewhere in 
Tibet and flows a thousand miles through 
Burma before it reaches the ocean. It carries down so much 
silt that the blue waters of the Bay of Bengal are yellowed 
by it for miles out to sea, and we travelled for hours 
through what looked like bean soup before we caught 
sight of land. The mud deposit made by the river is so 
heavy that the shore creeps out into the ocean several 
inches a year. Immense sand bars are created and navi¬ 
gation is extremely difficult. There is a regular pilot 
service, with twenty well-paid men on the list, each one of 
whom is always on the alert to note and report the fre¬ 
quent changes in the channel. 

Between Rangoon and the sea the stream is in many 
places several miles wide, and at the mouth the shores are 
so far apart that, as we hugged the north bank, we could 
hardly see the land on the south. Passing Syriam, where 
the Burma Oil Company has its enormous refineries, we 
steamed up toward the city. Long before the town came 
in sight we could see the tall spire of the Golden Pagoda, 
and as we sailed closer another shaft of gold pierced the 
blue sky. It was that of the Sule Pagoda, under which a 
Burmese king of the eighteenth century buried alive an 


40 



The Sule Pagoda, under which a Burmese king of the eighteenth cen¬ 
tury buried alive an enemy prince, rises in the midst of the business 
section of Rangoon. 
















This photograph was taken on New Year’s Day, in the so-called cool 
season at Rangoon. But even in winter, everyone who exerts himself 
here is soon drenched with perspiration, and parasols are carried all the 
year round. 








BURMA AND ITS CAPITAL 

enemy prince. It rises high out of the business blocks in 
the midst of the city. 

About the landing the river is so full of whirlpools and 
swift currents that ships seldom come right up to the 
wharves, but anchor in the stream while the passengers are 
transferred to small boats. It takes skilful rowing to make 
the pier without upsetting and I was thankful when I 
stepped out on dry land in the midst of one of the queerest 
crowds to be found in all Asia. 

Rangoon has people of every nation and of almost 
every tribe of the Asiatic continent. In its population of 
nearly 350,000 there are 7,000 Chinese, 5,000 Europeans, 
and more than 100,000 Indians from different parts of 
Hindustan. The people are of various colours—black, 
white, yellow, and brown—and they wear all sorts of 
costumes. The southern Indian coolies, naked except 
for their waistcloths, have red or white turbans about 
their heads, while their black bodies shine like jet. The 
rich among the yellow-skinned Chinese are clad in silks 
or fine cottons, while the Burmese strut along in silk 
skirts of the most delicate colours, their heads covered 
with gorgeous turbans. They wear jackets of silk or 
cotton, and look like human butterflies as they move about 
through the crowds. In addition there are the bankers 
and traders of Burma; tall-hatted Parsees from Bombay 
in sober black; and lean, skinny black money-lenders 
from Madras, who wear only sheets of cotton wrapped 
around their persons. There are Indian boys in cotton 
jackets and waistcloths and wearing caps embroidered in 
gold thread. There are Kling women with rings in their 
noses, and Burmese girls with plugs in their ears. 

The traffic about the wharves and through the city is 


47 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


carried by strange animals and pulled in strange vehicles. 
Though taxis are to be had, the usual passenger cab is the 
gharry, a four-wheeled open coach somewhat like a vic¬ 
toria, hauled by an Indian pony and driven by a Hindu or 
a Burman. The native gharry is little more than a box 
on wheels, with sliding doors. Heavy goods are usually 
moved in carts drawn by the humped cattle of Hindustan, 
and 1 have seen great loads of freight pushed and pulled 
along by half-naked men, their bodies dripping with sweat 
like those of so many horses. There are also fine auto¬ 
mobiles owned by the Europeans, with chauffeurs from 
the Punjab of Hindustan at the wheels. On account of 
the intense heat no one who can afford to ride ever walks 
in Rangoon, where even slight exertion bathes one in 
perspiration. I drove up to my hotel in a gharry at a cost 
of about thirty-two cents, and my baggage was carried 
on a cart pushed by coolies in breech-clouts. On the way 
I saw a Burman riding a bicycle with a nickel-plated frame. 
He had pulled his red silk skirt high up his thighs, and I 
observed that he had silver clasps on each leg, just over 
the knee, to hold it in place. He wore a pink silk turban 
and a white cotton jacket, and sat up straight as he 
pedalled along. 

This afternoon 1 took a street-car ride out into the coun¬ 
try. The railway was an overhead trolley, and the cars 
were divided into two classes, with the first-class fare 
double that of the second. In order to rub elbows with 
the people, I rode second-class, sitting between a Bengali 
in jacket and calico trousers, and a Burmese girl with a 
pink shawl thrown over her shoulders. She had a fat 
cigar in her hand, and asked me to smoke. Behind me 
were two Hindus wearing gold-embroidered skull caps, and 
48 


BURMA AND ITS CAPITAL 

a Burmese gentleman, well dressed and with amber plugs 
in his ears. In front was a Burmese woman with a baby 
in her arms. The child’s head was shaved clean, ex¬ 
cepting a patch on the crown the size of a dollar. And 
then there were Mohammedan women, closely veiled; 
Indian soldiers in turbans, and Chinese in loose silk shirts 
and baggy trousers. We went by rice mills and lumber 
yards in which elephants were working, and every turn of 
the wheels brought a new picture of this cinema show of 
the Far East. 

Rangoon already stands third among all the great ports 
of the Indian Empire. Lying here on the Rangoon River 
and near the mouth of the Irrawaddy, it is at the entrance 
to one of the most fertile valleys of the world, and in time, 
by railroads already projected, it may be the gateway to 
western China as well. The city extends for miles along 
the river, and is built back into the flat, alluvial delta. 
About it lie some of the richest rice lands of the earth, 
and Rangoon exports more rice than any other port on the 
globe. The river is now filled with steamers loading for 
Japan, India, and Europe. All along the wharves are 
river boats and barges which have brought in rice from 
the country, and there are great fleets of them at the mills 
unloading their cargoes. 

These river boats are the common carriers of interior 
Burma, where the chief means of transportation is by 
water. The Irrawaddy runs through the land from one 
end to the other. It has many tributaries, and these are 
connected with one another by canals so that one can go 
over a large part of the lowlands in boats. For nine hun¬ 
dred miles of its course the main stream is navigable all 
the year for steamers of about six feet draft. It averages 

49 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


more than a mile in width and at the floods it is in some 
places four or five miles across. 

The trade of the river is practically monopolized by 
the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company, whose vessels now 
navigate almost every river and creek. In addition to 
its freight traffic, which is enormous, it does a large passen¬ 
ger business. Three boats a week leave Rangoon for the 
six-day voyage to Mandalay, the capital of Burma before 
the country lost its independence. These comfortable 
steamers, which are largely patronized by tourists, look 
not unlike our Mississippi River boats and make about 
the same speed. 

The trip from Rangoon to Mandalay can be made in 
about eighteen hours by rail on a train that leaves this 
city every night. From Mandalay, a line has been built 
to Bhamo, on the edge of China, and trains run also to 
Myitkyina, on the upper Irrawaddy, near the Chinese 
border. The British have a number of projects for rail¬ 
road building in Burma, and expect eventually to es¬ 
tablish through service from Rangoon to Calcutta on the 
west, connecting with the railroads of China on the north 
and east. 

Burma is greatly in need of modern, improved high¬ 
ways. Out of fifteen thousand miles of roads of all 
kinds in its whole area, only two thousand miles are 
well surfaced. On account of the dense tropical vegeta¬ 
tion and its rapid growth, the cost of building and main¬ 
taining roads is unusually high. To keep back the 
luxuriant growth, the government highway engineers 
usually clear a right of way from sixty to one hundred 
feet wide and build a sixteen-foot roadway in the centre. 
Other difficulties are the scarcity of good crushed stone. 


50 


BURMA AND ITS CAPITAL 


the inefficiency of the bullock-drawn rollers used in some 
sections, and the comparatively high cost of labour. 

In spite of the mixture of races and costumes, Rangoon 
impresses one as a modern city. As the capital of the 
province of Burma, it has many handsome buildings to 
accommodate the government offices. The Secretariat, 
for instance, consists of an enormous structure of two 
stories built about a hollow square several acres in ex¬ 
tent and has as many rooms as one of our big government 
buildings at Washington. It houses the chief departments 
of the government, and the place fairly hums with the 
hundreds of Burmese and British clerks who are busy keep¬ 
ing the books of the provincial administration. 

Another big building is the post office, situated in the 
centre of the city. It is a three-story structure, with iron 
porches, or galleries, around its two upper stories. The 
post office department is under the Director General of 
the Posts of India. Some of its methods are antiquated, 
but it does a business that is enormous and growing. 
For instance, it uses oxcarts to haul the mail from the 
steamers and railway stations, but, nevertheless, millions 
of letters, parcels, and newspapers are handled every year. 
The postal service also manages the telegraphs, and the 
larger offices have postal savings banks connected with 
them. 

One of the interesting places of Rangoon is the residence 
of the governor of the province. He is furnished a large 
retinue of servants and gets a salary of more than thirty 
thousand dollars a year, besides an allowance for enter¬ 
taining. The mansion compares favourably with the 
palaces of Europe. It is a three-story building of wide 
halls, enormous rooms with twenty-foot ceilings, and the 


5i 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


great open courts so necessary for comfort in these lands 
of the sun. It is situated in a rolling park filled with palm 
trees, and its acres of closely cut grass are as velvety as the 
lawns of an English estate. 

When I called on His Excellency the other day, I drove 
through the park and past a greenhouse filled with the 
most beautiful orchids, and my way up to the mansion 
was bordered with shrubs covered with blossoms. At the 
door I was met by soldiers in uniform. I first registered 
my name in the governor's book and then a Burmese, clad 
in bright silk, took in my card. A moment later I was 
received by the private secretary, who presented me to 
the governor. 

The governor of this province of the Indian Empire has a 
big job. I suppose most of us know better than the Bos¬ 
tonian, who, when asked about the location of Burma, 
replied in a superior way: 

“Burma! Burma! Of course I know where it is. I 
have a cousin out there, but he calls it Bermuda." 

The “ Burma" from which I am writing lies along the 
eastern shores of the Bay of Bengal, a few hundred miles 
southeast of the Himalaya Mountains and just across the 
way from the peninsula of Hindustan. On the north it 
extends close to Tibet; and on the east it skirts the Chinese 
province of Yunnan, French Indo-China, and Siam. On 
the south lies the ocean. The country is bigger than 
France, Germany, or the Spanish peninsula, and it has a 
population of thirteen millions, of whom eight millions are 
the Burmans, the happiest, best-dressed, and most likeable 
people of Asia. 

Like the other provinces of the Indian Empire, Burma 
is governed by a dual system, known as the dyarchy. 

52 


BURMA AND ITS CAPITAL 

Under this, certain matters that concern the maintenance 
of peace, order, and good government are called “reserved/' 
meaning that they are to be handled by the British governor 
acting with the men appointed to serve on his Executive 
Council. “Transferred subjects," such as local self-govern¬ 
ment, public health and sanitation, agriculture, fisheries, re¬ 
ligious and charitable endowments, weights and measures, 
and similar questions, are looked after by the governor 
acting with the ministers, who are elected members of the 
Legislative Council. By this division of authority be¬ 
tween her representative and the representatives of the 
people, Great Britain is endeavouring gradually to give 
British India the status of one of her self-governing 
dominions. 

The unrest that characterizes the whole Empire of India 
has gone far in Burma, where it is known as the movement 
of the Young Burmans. Its promoters are the Buddhist 
priests who, more than any one else, have taught the 
Burmese to demand self-government. Thus the agitation 
in this province is both religious and political. The edict 
prohibiting Europeans from visiting Buddhist pagodas with¬ 
out taking off their shoes and stockings is a product of the 
campaign for self-rule. As in India, non-cooperation with¬ 
out violence has been preached as an effective means of 
securing home rule. For example, when the Prince of 
Wales visited Rangoon a few years ago, the nationalist 
schools held their examinations on the day of his arrival 
instead of encouraging a big turnout to greet him. 

One cause for their unrest, say the Burmans, is the fact 
that though governed as an Indian province, Burma is 
really not a part of India at all. They claim that her people 
belong to another race and another stage of political 

53 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


development. Doubtless this is why the Burmese have 
been particularly successful in getting reforms from the 
British government, which has been, in some respects, 
more liberal to Burma than to the rest of the Indian 
Empire. The forests and the schools are now entirely 
controlled by the Burmans, and the women of the province 
have been given the vote. 

At the foundation of the whole governing system of 
Burma are the village headmen. They were a part of the 
administration of the past, and they still come into close 
contact with the people. In the larger towns there is a 
headman in each ward, and in some sections these are 
assisted by certain others called elders. The headmen, 
who are appointed by the villagers, act both as tax gather¬ 
ers and as local magistrates. Each is responsible for good 
order in his ward or village, and he has the right to inflict 
certain punishments. No one may take up a residence in 
a village without permission of the headman, who can 
order bad characters to leave. 

As a rule, the lands and property of the country are 
fairly assessed by the government and the taxes are justly 
collected by the headmen. A large number of the people 
have land of their own and all are far better treated than 
they were during the days when they had their own kings. 
Even the Burmese nationalists will admit this, yet law 
and order, sanitation, schools, and hospitals do not make 
them any less eager to get rid of the British. 


54 



This temple on the Golden Pagoda platform, with its carved teak, 
its inlaid glasswork, and its statues, cost forty thousand dollars. The 
two figures represent Nats, the nature spirits taken over by the Burmese 
Buddhists from more primitive religions. 













-:_ ~ '.^^1 

An endless procession of worshippers passes beneath the carved teak- 
wood roof built over the long stairs up to the Golden Pagoda. This 
structure, which contains relics of Buddha, is overlaid with gold leaf and 
is one of the holiest of Buddhist shrines. 





CHAPTER VII 


THE GOLDEN PAGODA 

S UPPOSE you join me this morning for a visit to 
the Shwe Dagon, one of the most magnificent Bud¬ 
dhist pagodas on earth. To one tenth of mankind 
this shrine has a special sanctity, for it contains 
actual relics, not only of the great Buddha, but of the 
three Buddhas who preceded him. It is the Mecca of the 
followers of the Great Enlightened One in this part of Asia. 

The sun of Rangoon is deadly at midday, so we rise 
with the crows, whose cawing begins before dawn. The 
light is just coming through the palm trees as we sit down 
in the hotel bedrooms to our breakfast of tea, toast, and 
jam. Breakfast finished, we get into a gharry and a 
black-turbaned Indian with a rat-like pony drives us 
through the wide streets of Rangoon. We pass half-naked 
coolies on their way to work; jostle the bare-legged men 
with buckets who are sprinkling the roads; turn out for 
heavily loaded carts hauled by humped bullocks; pass the 
fine bungalows of the better class residents, and draw up 
at the foot of Pagoda Hill. 

Rising higher than St. Paul's Cathedral in London, the 
Shwe Dagon dominates the whole city. With the terraced 
mound upon which it stands the structure is as tall as the 
Washington Monument. As we look up we are dazzled 
by the blaze of the gold with which its sides are literally 
covered. 


55 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


It is only seven o'clock, but the worshippers are 
out in full force, and the monks are on the streets with 
their begging bowls. We see hundreds of people on 
their way to the shrine, and at the entrance find a horde 
of peddlers with flowers, incense, and candles for the 
devout. 

There is no thoroughfare on earth more remarkable 
than the approach to the Shwe Dagon. Going to the 
south entrance and passing between two gigantic monsters 
with the heads of lions and the bodies of griffins, we start 
the climb up to the platform on which the pagoda is 
built. The long flight of stairs leading to the shrine is 
covered by a series of wonderfully carved teak roofs, 
supported on pillars of wood and masonry. Through 
the years these steps have been polished by the bare feet 
of the millions who have gone up to pray. No Buddhist 
would dream of ascending such a holy place in his sandals, 
and now foreigners as well are compelled to take off their 
shoes if they wish to go up. As we proceed, shoes in 
hand, we hear the birds sing. Thousands of them have 
made nests in the carvings, and they fly back and forth 
through the arcades and all about the pagoda. Accord¬ 
ing to the tenets of the Buddhist religion, it is a sin to kill 
any living thing, and the birds seem to know they are in 
the house of their friends. 

We pass booths all the way up. Pretty Burmese girls 
with plugs of gold, silver, or glass in the lobes of their ears, 
sit cross-legged on mats, selling offerings for Buddha. The 
candles are of all sizes, from tapers as thin as a baby’s 
finger to great cylinders of wax as tall as the girls and as 
thick as their waists. I buy a bunch of the tapers and 
give them to one of the worshippers. She smiles with 


5b 


THE GOLDEN PAGODA 


delight at the thought of how much merit she will gain by 
burning them at the shrine. 

Now come out on the platform and look up at the 
pagoda. It is a gilded mountain ending in a spire nearly 
four hundred feet high. The stone platform where we are 
standing would make a half-dozen city blocks, and the 
monument itself is a quarter of a mile in circumference. 
That shining umbrella which you see on the spire looks 
small from this point. It is big enough to cover a good- 
sized house, and it is studded with jewels. Listen to the 
golden bells around its rim, tinkling in the breeze. 

More than a hundred of the fifteen hundred bells hung 
about the umbrella are of solid gold and the rest are of 
silver. On the staff above is a golden vane studded with 
several thousand emeralds, rubies, and diamonds, and 
the whole ends in a bud of diamonds. Thus, away off 
up there, out of sight in the blue, is a king’s ransom of 
splendid jewels. 

The gorgeous umbrella, which cost more than a quarter 
of a million dollars, was presented to the pagoda by a 
Burmese king, Mindon Min, and its installation at Ran¬ 
goon was almost a political incident. In Burma placing 
one of these umbrellas on the top of a great pagoda 
had always been an expression of sovereignty. Therefore 
Mindon Min was most anxious that his representatives be 
allowed to put his gift on the summit of the Golden 
Pagoda, but the British would not permit it, and, instead, 
supervised the job themselves. 

The Golden Pagoda was erected with free-will offerings 
from the followers of Buddha. When the notice went out 
that it was to be built, money and jewels flowed in from 
every part of Burma and all the work was done by vol- 

57 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


unteer labour. Even now the pagoda is kept up by the 
gifts of the people, and it has been overlaid with gold leaf 
again and again. One of the last of the native kings once 
made a vow that he would give his weight in gold to the 
Shwe Dagon. After he had taken a bath, and scrubbed 
off as many pounds as he could, he jumped on one side of 
the scales and piled up gold on the other. His idea cost 
him just forty-five thousand dollars' worth of the precious 
metal. With the money more gold leaf was bought and the 
upper part of the structure received a fresh coat and soon 
shone like a new five dollar gold-piece. 

The pagoda has no interior, being a solid mass of brick 
raised over a relic chamber. The lower part is much like 
a beehive. The whole is terraced around as it goes up¬ 
ward, growing smaller and smaller until it ends in a spire. 
The structure is covered with gold leaf, which has to be re¬ 
newed relatively often. Between renewals, however, bits 
of gold leaf are being constantly furnished by worshippers, 
who buy pieces perhaps two by four inches in size and go 
up with a priest to see their offerings attached to the sur¬ 
face of the pagoda. Thus a man can be sure that he gets 
the merit he has paid for and that his gift is not embezzled. 

The relics of Buddha beneath the pagoda include the 
hairs that he gave to the two brothers who brought them 
here. Five hundred and eighty-five years before the birth 
of Christ, so the legend goes, two Burmese merchants 
dealing in rice came upon Buddha meditating under the 
trees at Gaya. Satisfied of their piety, the sage pulled 
four hairs from his head and told the brothers to bury 
them on a certain hill upon which his three predecessors 
had left respectively a staff, a water-filter, and a robe. 
They would know the place by a felled wood-oil tree lying 
58 


THE GOLDEN PAGODA 


in a peculiar manner. After much search, the Burmans 
found the spot and there buried the relics in a golden 
casket over which was built the nucleus of the Golden 
Pagoda. 

To-day the Buddhists of Burma consider it an almost 
sure passport to heaven to erect a small pagoda about 
the base of the great Shwe Dagon; and now there are 
hundreds of little temples, most exquisitely carved and 
often gilded, on a 1 sides of the great monument. These 
are on the average, I should say, something like thirty 
feet high, and are topped by gilded spires. They are 
much like chapels, and inside each of them is a sitting 
statue of Buddha, often of more than life size. Some of 
these statues are of gold, others are of silver, and not a 
few are of alabaster or marble. 

Around the edges of the platform, leaving a space 
several hundred feet wide between them and the Shwe 
Dagon and its clustering shrines, are other temples. Their 
spires are from ten to fifty feet high and are of teak so 
finely carved that it looks like black lace. Some of these 
temples are decorated with mosaics of coloured glass, set 
in plaster or in a network of golden wires. When the sun 
shines on them they reflect the splendours of the peacock's 
tail. Lying before the Buddhas within are offerings of 
flowers, fruit, and rice, while gifts of brocades and silks 
have been placed on their laps. 

At one corner of the platform is a great bell, weighing 
forty-two tons. It is so thick that the yellow-gowned 
monk who acts as my guide can just touch the inside of the 
rim with his fingers when the outside rests in the crook of 
his elbow. He strikes it with a deer horn and the sound 
booms out on the air. 


59 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


This bell was presented to Buddha by a native king 
nearly a century ago. When the British occupied the 
country they decided to carry it off to Calcutta as a 
trophy. They got it as far as the Irrawaddy, but in 
attempting to load it on a vessel let it fall into the 
stream and their engineers could not raise it. Some Bur- 
mans came up and asked if they might have the bell if 
they could get it out of the river. The British granted 
their request, having no idea that they could succeed. 
But the natives lashed the bell to a system of pontoons 
put down at low water so that when the tide rose it floated 
the pontoons and lifted up the bell. It was towed to the 
bank where the receding tide left it stranded. Then logs 
were put under it, ropes were attached, and with thousands 
of Burmans pulling together it was tugged back to its place 
on Pagoda Hill. 

Let us stroll around the pagoda platform and have a 
look at the people at prayers. There are scores of men, 
women, and children squatting on the bare bricks. Their 
hands are folded and they look up at the spire as they 
pray. They do not worship the spire or the images, but 
come to this holy place to renew their vows, to think upon 
Buddha, and to repent of their sins. 

Inside the shrines are many other worshippers squatting 
or kneeling at their devotions. A man and woman per¬ 
haps pray that in the next life they may live again as 
husband and wife; or perhaps they beg that they may have 
their next existence as well-to-do people. Some desire to 
reach such spiritual heights as to become Buddhas, or at 
least Bodhisattvas, men scarcely less holy than the great 
sage himself. 

About the shrines are bells hung on stout cross beams. 

60 


THE GOLDEN PAGODA 


Beside them are deer antlers or wooden stakes, with which 
the worshipper, his devotions ended, strikes the metal 
to call attention to what he has done. See this woman 
squatting here at my right. Her pink silk gown is wrap¬ 
ped tightly about her body, and her bare feet stick out 
behind. She sways back and forth, counting her beads 
as she chants her prayers. On the other side of us are 
three Buddhist nuns wrapped in their sheets of plain 
yellow cotton. Their heads are shaved close. They hold 
out cloths, upon which people throw offerings as they 
pass. Each nun has a rosary about her neck, and tells 
her beads as she prays. They have made a pilgrimage to 
the Shwe Dagon from one of the convents in Burma. 

We see many monks worshipping about the pagoda. 
Here comes one now. He must be sixty years old, and 
his brown face is withered, his neck is shrunken, and his 
thin legs seem to totter. He is clad only in two strips 
of bright yellow cotton, his right shoulder and arm being 
bare. In his left hand is a pair of old sandals, the sweaty 
outlines of his feet marked on the leather, and in his right 
he carries a small bunch of roses. He kneels on the bricks 
with the tropical sun beating down upon his shaven head, 
and holds up the flowers as he prays. After a time he 
goes to a chapel and lays them on the knees of the great 
golden Buddha. 

But what is this coming around the corner from the 
other side of the great spire? It is a dark-skinned man, 
alternately getting up and falling down. He is a Buddhist 
from northern India, dressed in turban and waistcloth. 
Prostrating himself on the bricks, he stretches out his bare 
arms as far as he can reach, straining every muscle from 
the ends of his toes to the tips of his fingers. Marking the 
61 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


limit of his reach with a candle, he gets up, and repeats 
the process until he has made the whole circuit of the 
pagoda by measuring his length on the ground. At the 
end of his journey he lies praying for three or four minutes, 
and then rises with a beatific look upon his face, evidently 
believing that he has done something worth while. 1 
have heard that one fanatic came in this fashion all the 
way from Peking. 

In all their observances, strange as they may seem to us, 
the people are much in earnest. I am told that the 
Burman is naturally religious. He is charitable, too, 
and now and then spends his surplus in erecting rest 
houses or places along the road where travellers can get a 
cool drink of water. The whole land is spotted with 
pagodas; they are to be found in every town and village 
and on almost every hill, and the country has more relig¬ 
ious monuments, perhaps, than any other of its size in the 
world. It is an act of great merit to build a monastery 
and there are many old men in Burma who are proud of the 
title of Kyaung-Taga, or “ Builder of a Monastery.” 
Every village has its monastery and every monastery 
conducts a school for teaching boys reading, writing, and 
arithmetic. The pupils also commit to memory prayers 
and hymns to Lord Buddha. They are supposed to pray 
night and morning. One of their prayers is: 

How great a favour has the Lord Buddha bestowed upon me in 
showing me his law, by keeping which I may escape hell and secure 
salvation. 

The personnel of the monastery is constantly changing. 
Men come in and go out. Most of the boys put on the 
yellow robe of the priesthood for a few months only, and 
62 



When the monks finish their daily round with begging bowls in hand, 
they go back to their monasteries, where they lay a part of the food 
given them before Buddha and spread out the rest for breakfast. 






Every Burmese male is expected to spend some period of his youth in 
a monastery. There a boy is often detailed to act as chela, or servant, 
to a monk, who teaches his disciple the principles of Buddhism. 




THE GOLDEN PAGODA 


lay it aside in order to marry. Those who remain monks 
are bound by the strictest rules against having any rela¬ 
tions with women. They are not allowed to sleep under 
the same roof with a nun, must not travel in a cart or boat 
having a woman as passenger, and must never touch a 
member of the opposite sex. One of the Buddhist books 
says that a man should not even offer his hand to his mother 
to help her out of a ditch. He may hold forth a stick, but 
if she grasps it he must imagine he is pulling at a log of 
wood. 

Youths are admitted to the monasteries on probation 
and first act as servants, or chelas, for the monks, having 
about the same duties as Kim had with the old abbot in 
Kipling's novel. Once admitted, the boys are taught 
the principles of the Buddhist faith, and are supposed to 
devote themselves to holy living, thinking, and doing. 
The monks are awakened at daybreak by a wooden bell, 
and are supposed to be at their prayers by five-thirty. 
After that each takes up his household tasks about 
the establishment; he may sweep the floors of the temple 
or water the garden, or do odd jobs of various kinds. 

Later the monks assemble and start out to beg. Headed 
by their leader, they walk in company through the main 
streets of the town. They do not cry out for alms or call 
at the houses, but merely walk along single file in the mid¬ 
dle of the street, their eyes fixed on the ground. Each 
man holds his bowl out in front of him, and the people come 
forth and drop in their offerings. As in Bangkok, the 
monks accept the food in silence, believing that they con¬ 
fer a favour in allowing others to give. The begging pro¬ 
cession lasts for an hour or so. When it is over the monks 
go back to the monastery, where they lay a part of their 
63 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


gifts before the statues of Buddha, and spread the rest 
out for breakfast. I hear it whispered, however, that 
most of the monasteries serve a hot breakfast as well. 
There is another meal about noon and a dinner toward 
evening. The inmates of the monasteries I have visited 
looked fat and healthy and none appeared any the worse 
for the fasting and discipline of his religious life. 

Education in Burma is not left entirely to the Buddhist 
monks. There are government schools of all kinds, from 
kindergartens to colleges and the University of Burma. In 
the whole province there are more than eight thousand so- 
called “public” schools, or institutions having a course of 
study conforming with the standards prescribed by the 
Department of Public Instruction and the University. 
Some of these are government schools, some are monastic 
schools, and some are those established by the Christian 
missionaries. In all, more than a half million pupils are 
enrolled in the public and private schools of Burma. 

So far as the Buddhists are concerned, the missionaries 
make comparatively few conversions. But besides the 
followers of the teachings of Gautama there are in Burma 
many Animists, or worshippers of nature spirits. In¬ 
deed, devil-worship has to some extent permeated the 
purer Buddhist faith. Among the Animists are the 
Karens, who live along the eastern side of Burma and 
inhabit a considerable part of the Irrawaddy delta. More 
than a hundred thousand of them are Christians. Many 
observers familiar with missions in Asia and Africa say 
that, all things considered, American missionaries have 
made more progress in Burma than anywhere else in the 
world. 

About the first Christian work done in Burma was that 

64 


THE GOLDEN PAGODA 


of the American Baptists, who sent Adoniram Judson here 
in 1813. Judson made the first Burmese dictionary and 
grammar and translated the Bible into the vernacular. 
He remained here when all the foreigners fled at the time 
of the first troubles with England, and later, during the 
British-Burmese war, was thrown into prison and almost 
starved. The story of his sufferings and achievements is 
one of the most affecting in missionary history. 

Since then the Baptist Mission here has steadily grown. 
That branch of American Protestantism seems to have 
chosen Burma as its special field, and it has a large number 
of missionaries, many native churches, and thousands of 
communicants. It has schools in most of the important 
towns and a college at Rangoon. The American Baptist 
Mission Press is one of the largest and most flourishing 
of its kind. It prints Bibles, tracts, religious newspapers, 
and many educational works. The American Methodists 
established a mission here about fifty years ago. They 
are doing considerable work in Lower Burma and main¬ 
tain numerous schools. 


65 


CHAPTER VIII 


RICE MILLS AND PADDY FIELDS OF THE IRRAWADDY 

I HAVE just visited the greatest rice mill of the world. 
It lies here at Pazundaung, on the Irrawaddy River, 
just below the port of Rangoon and belongs to the 
Bullock Brothers, who own other large mills and 
export thousands of tons of the grain every year. It can 
turn out seven hundred tons of cleaned rice in a day and 
sometimes has as many as thirteen hundred employees. 

Burma is about the best rice patch on the bosom of old 
Mother Earth. The total rice-growing area of the prov¬ 
ince is nearly as large as the state of West Virginia, and 
it produces an annual exportable surplus of between three 
and four thousand million pounds. This is sufficient to 
give every human being on earth all the rice he could eat 
in one day, and still leave enough over to sprinkle all the 
brides and grooms of one year. Rice is the money crop of 
Burma, taking the place held by wheat, corn, tobacco, or 
cotton with us. Poor harvests are practically unknown 
here, and there is always a steady market in Ceylon, India, 
the Straits Settlements, and other British possessions in 
the East, as well as in Europe. Hindustan alone takes 
about a million tons of rice from Burma in a year. 

The British government in Burma, appreciating how 
much the prosperity of the country depends upon rice, is 
extending the irrigated areas and employs experts to study 
seed selection and make forecasts showing the probable 
66 



Among the craft swarming the Irrawaddy and the creeks about Ran¬ 
goon are the rice boats from up country. Their captains steer from 
perches high up on the poop deck. 




Up the Irrawaddy sail heavily laden bazaar boats carrying silks and 
cottons and canned goods and cheap jewellery to Miss and Madam Burma 
in the interior. Being good business women, they will drive shrewd 
bargains for their purchases. 



On the eastern edge of Rangoon lie Dalhousie Park and the Royal Lakes, 
which supply the city drinking water. No place in the Orient has a 
finer municipal playground than this. 








RICE MILLS AND PADDY FIELDS 

yield of each season. It has its agents in every part of 
the country, who report upon the crop prospects, and 
every village headman informs the government of the 
number of acres his people will plant. 

The grain is harvested as paddy, or unhusked rice. 
Rice has two outer coats, or husks, both of which stick so 
tightly to the kernel that it is hard work getting down to 
the rice of commerce. In the form of paddy the grain 
keeps better, for weevils do not get at it, nor does it mould 
so quickly as when the outer coat has been taken off. 
Paddy loses about one half its bulk when both husks are 
removed in the milling process. 

The Pazundaung rice plant covers as much ground as 
any of our large flour mills. Its five-story buildings have 
single rooms as big as a good-sized garden patch. I 
entered one on the ground floor which was packed to the 
ceiling with bags of paddy. It held more than two 
million pounds, and other rooms of equal size adjoining 
it were filled with the cleaned rice awaiting shipment. 

Paddy is brought here from all over Burma. It is 
floated down the streams to the Irrawaddy River in flat- 
boats and barges, and towed to Rangoon by steamers. 
At Rangoon the rice is unloaded by Indian coolies, who 
carry it from the boats to the mills in basket loads weigh¬ 
ing forty-six pounds each. They lift the grain to their 
heads or shoulders and take it up the bank of the river 
over a planked roadway. 

Some of the unloaders are women—black, buxom Klings, 
who perform heavy labour that no Burmese women 
would do. Not a few have gold buttons in their noses and 
rings in their ears, and all wear armlets and anklets. I 
saw three with rings on their toes. I remember one 
67 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


girl of eighteen with silver bracelets covering her arm 
from wrist to elbow, and broad bands of silver on each 
of her bare legs. The lobes and rims of her ears were 
pierced with gold rivets, and the gold ring in her nose was 
as big around as a saucer and as thick as a knitting needle. 
This ring hung down over her mouth, and when she ate 
lunch she stuffed the rice in through it. Her husband, a 
black man in a white cotton waistcloth, worked with her. 

In one room I saw the men handling the finished prod¬ 
uct. The white rice is bagged in sacks holding from one 
hundred and sixty-eight to two hundred and twenty-six 
pounds. These the coolies carried into the warehouses 
and piled up in stacks. Each man lifted one of the bags 
to his shoulders and trotted up an inclined roadway. It 
looks easy, and three Harvard athletes who visited the 
mill the other day rather doubted what was told them of 
the unusual strength of the coolie, saying that any good 
man could carry such a load. Thereupon the manager 
asked one of them to try it. He got a bag on his back 
without much trouble, and was able to make his way 
easily on the level, but when he tried to go up the incline 
the weight pulled him over and he fell with the rice to the 
floor. 

These same college men tried to pick out the broken 
rice grains in competition with the Indians, thinking they 
could work quite as fast, but they had to give up in despair. 
The rice is graded by the proportion of the broken grains 
in it, and every shipment has to be tested by counting the 
number of whole grains in a given quantity. It takes 
keen eyes to distinguish the imperfect kernels, and the 
Harvard boys failed in the test. 

It seems strange to think of polishing rice like your 
68 


RICE MILLS AND PADDY FIELDS 

best silver spoons, but that is what I saw done as I went 
through the mill. The machinery is the finest known to 
the industry. The paddy is first run over shakers and 
sieves to remove dirt, stones, straw, and other matter, and 
then winnowed. It is next hulled by being passed between 
grinders which take off the husk, or outer coat, and 
winnowed once more. It is now known as looniain, in 
which form it is sometimes marketed. To get white rice, 
like that used on our tables, the grain is run through cones, 
or pearlers, which remove the tightly clinging inside 
husk. After this it goes through sieves so arranged and 
graded that the percentage of broken rice which it is 
desired to separate from the whole grain can be removed 
and bagged separately. Between the coning and the 
last sieving process, the best grades for the European mar¬ 
ket get an extra polishing in tubs of wood and wire gauze 
in which there are revolving cylinders covered with sheep¬ 
skin. Sometimes paraffin wax is put in with the rice; the 
friction of the grains hitting against each other melts the 
wax which coats the kernels, thus giving them a glossy 
finish. After passing through the polishing processes, the 
grain falls through a chute into bags. These are sewed up 
by hand and made ready for shipment abroad. While 
the polished rice is preferred on the European markets, it 
is not best for peoples who make rice their chief article of 
food. The husks contain essential vitamines, and it was 
found that natives of the Philippines who had lived chiefly 
on polished rice and were suffering from beri-beri were 
cured by feeding them paddy or an extract of rice husks. 

Of the world's rice crop, the Empire of India produces 
about forty per cent, or perhaps thirty-six million tons 
annually. The Indian Empire is also the world's largest 
69 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


rice exporter, sometimes shipping as much as two and one 
half million tons a year, the greater part of which comes 
from Burma. Although Bengal, Bihar, and Madras all 
grow more rice than does Burma, these provinces export 
less because of the enormous domestic consumption by 
their dense populations. The Burmese rice is much bet¬ 
ter than that of Hindustan, and it brings such high prices 
that the natives ship their own product abroad and eat 
the cheaper imported varieties. 

It is hard to see how Burma’s rice industry could go on 
without the coolies from Hindustan. In all the labour of har¬ 
vesting and transporting the grain they are indispensable. 
At the beginning of the paddy season, along toward the end 
of November, tens of thousands of them are brought over 
from Madras and Bengal and set to reaping the grain fields. 
All the work is done by hand, for mechanical reapers are 
unknown in Burma. When the season is over, about the 
middle of April, they begin their drift back to Hindustan, 
though year after year some stay behind and settle 
in and near Rangoon and the other ports. Of the six 
hundred thousand Indians in Burma, more than one 
sixth are in Rangoon and the rest are in Lower Burma 
and along the coasts. There are few or none in the 
interior. 

Many people, in speaking of the Indian labour invasion, 
criticize the Burmese as being too lazy and shiftless to do 
their own work. The fact is that the Burman is primarily 
a farmer and does not readily take to any other sort of 
work. Agriculture is the chief industry of the province 
and supports nearly three fourths of the population. 
For eight months of the year the natives are willing to toil 
early and late in their fields of beans, peanuts, tobacco, 


70 



In the rice fields of Burma, which exceed in area the state of West Vir¬ 
ginia, the entire crop is harvested with ancient hand sickles. It takes 
six days to cut an acre by this method as compared with one hour by 
machine. 





Just as for centuries past, the rice of Burma is still winnowed in the 
wind. The grain needed for family use is stored in baskets and tubs, while 
most of the surplus goes down to Rangoon, the world’s chief rice port. 





RICE MILLS AND PADDY FIELDS 


cotton, and rice, but they claim the rest of the time 
for vacation and their numerous Buddhist holidays. 
Compared with the other peoples of this part of the world, 
they are well-to-do. In fact, since the Burman can afford 
to dress himself and his wife in silk, have a plenty to eat, 
and hire someone else to do his heavy work, one wonders 
whether he is not wise, after all, to be satisfied with that 
rather than driving himself furiously to get more gain. 
I know that many of our Americans who work harder get 
less out of life than do these men and women of pagoda 
land. 

Many of the business men of the province, especially the 
bunniahs, or money-lenders, have come here from Hindus¬ 
tan. The latter lend money to the Burmese rice-growers 
at from twenty-five to forty per cent, a year, taking mort¬ 
gages on their crops as security. Most of them are na¬ 
tives of Madras, who come to Burma with the single idea of 
accumulating money, and spending next to nothing while 
doing so. The money-lender usually lives in a mean 
house and his dress would not cost a dollar. His legs are 
bare except for a piece of calico about a yard wide and 
several yards long which is wrapped about his waist and 
tucked in. He wears a calico jacket and sometimes has 
a shawl-like piece of cotton about his shoulders. His 
shaved black head is usually covered by a turban or cap 
and he often has lines drawn in ashes upon his forehead to 
denote his caste. Some of the money-lenders are quite 
wealthy, all are said to be honest, and their word is accepted 
by the banks for large sums. Some start in Rangoon as 
clerks at twelve dollars a month. They live on half that 
amount and lend the rest out at high rates. When they 
have accumulated ten thousand rupees or so they go 


7i 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 

back home and thereafter live economically on the 
interest. 

While the Indian money-lenders make many small loans 
to the farmers, the movement of the rice crop is really 
financed by the British, who have four large banks in 
Rangoon, all of which do a general banking and exchange 
business. Their interest rates vary according to the 
season of the year. When the rice crop is to be moved 
there is a great demand for money and the rates go up, 
while between times there is a smaller demand and the 
rates are lower. They get from six to eight per cent., 
receiving the higher rate during the periods when rice is 
being planted and harvested. In the fall paddy buy¬ 
ers, representatives of the mills and wholesale houses in 
Rangoon and the other rice-shipping ports, go to the har¬ 
vested areas, buy the grain, and see that it is loaded on 
boats. By January the Irrawaddy tributaries are full of 
rice cargoes on the way down to Rangoon. At the mills 
the rice is unloaded and weighed as quickly as possible, so 
that the vessels may make a quick turn-around and start 
back up stream for another load. Storage warehouses, 
which used to be few and far between, are now scattered 
through the up-river districts, so that almost half the 
exportable surplus can be stored in the up-country go- 
downs. 

The trade of Burma is almost altogether in the hands of 
the British. They control not only the rice export, but 
most of the rest of Burma's foreign trade as well. Ameri¬ 
can goods are sold here to the value of only about one 
million dollars a year, and consist mostly of lamps, hard¬ 
ware, machinery, and canned goods. We practically 
control the automobile market and have latterly out- 
72 


RICE MILLS AND PADDY FIELDS 


stripped Great Britain in supplying steel, iron pipes, and 
tubes. The total imports of the province amount to some¬ 
thing like seventy million dollars per annum, of which the 
United Kingdom and the British dominions supply nearly 
seventy per cent. 


73 


CHAPTER IX 


AT THE RANGOON JAIL 

T HE biggest jail in John Bull’s domains is at 
Rangoon. It has a capacity of more than three 
thousand convicts, and is a unique institution. 
The jail is situated right in the heart of the city 
and is surrounded by lilac-coloured brick walls twenty 
feet tall. High up on their corners are watch towers in 
which the dark-bearded and brown-faced Indian soldiers 
stand day and night, ready to shoot down any prisoner 
who attempts to escape. There are more sentry boxes 
midway of the walls and still others scattered throughout 
the vast enclosure, and the prisoners are under surveil¬ 
lance every minute. A squad of soldiers was drilling in 
front of the entrance when I drove up to it this morning, 
and inside the jail I found guards everywhere. 

An official introduction opened the doors for me and the 
superintendent gave orders that I was to be shown every 
part of the institution and allowed to make such photo¬ 
graphs as I wished. I was accompanied by one of the 
Burmese clerks of the jail office, a bright young fellow 
with a yellow face, brown eyes, and black hair about 
which was bound a pink turban. Below his khaki jacket 
was his silk skirt, wound closely about him from waist to 
ankles. He was known to all the officials, and, at his 
word, all doors were opened and all cells unlocked. We 
walked together through ward after ward and visited the 

74 


AT THE RANGOON JAIL 

workshops, where more than two thousand prisoners la¬ 
bour from six in the morning until four in the afternoon. 

The first division we entered was the one devoted to the 
incorrigibles. Most of the prisoners work together in 
great shops of various kinds, but in this ward every man 
laboured alone. He could not see or hear anything but 
the sorrowful shriek of the machinery which he and his 
fellows were operating, and these noises sounded to me like 
the wails of the damned. Imagine a long hall fifteen feet 
wide upon which open perhaps threescore cells. Each is 
about the size of a hall bedroom, and lighted by a grated 
window so high up under the roof that the inmate cannot 
see out. The walls and floors are of cement, and the only 
furniture is a low bench about two feet wide and eight 
inches high, with a coarse blanket upon it. This is the 
prisoner's bed. His pillow is a chunk of wood about the 
size of an ordinary loaf of bread. 

Did I say the only furniture? I am wrong! There is 
also a great crank in the cell, attached to a bar which 
extends through the walls, and which, by an arrangement 
of cog wheels, turns a mill in the hall outside. The hopper 
of this mill is kept filled with raw peanuts, which are 
ground and pressed to get out the oil. To turn the crank 
the convict must use both hands and all the weight and 
strength of his body. Moreover, he is compelled to keep 
the mill going throughout the day. 

The cell I first inspected was that of Po Sa, a Burmese 
convicted of assault with intent to kill. Excepting a light 
iron collar about his neck, on which was a metal tag bear¬ 
ing his number, he was naked to the waist. From the 
waist down he wore only a breech-cloth, and I could see his 
muscles ripple as he strained at the crank. He appeared 

75 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


to be making so much of an effort that I thought he was 
shamming, and I asked the guards to let me try turning 
the mill myself. Thereupon the door was unlocked and 
1 took Po Sa’s place. The crank moved easily at first, 
but after a hundred revolutions every cord in my arms and 
chest ached, and in a few moments I was ready to drop. 

Another kind of work carried on in the institution is 
making coir, a coarse rope of coconut fibre. The prisoners 
sit flat on the floor and pound the fibre to reduce it to 
the proper consistency. They keep up their pounding 
hour after hour and day after day, and if they stop are 
forced by the guards to go on again. I asked my 
guide whether flogging was common, “No/' he replied, 
"but it is done now and then to keep the convicts in 
order.” 

We went on through enclosure after enclosure, contain¬ 
ing workshops of various kinds. The doors were opened by 
dark-skinned jailers and the guards presented arms as we 
went through. The prisoners we met saluted us by drop¬ 
ping on their bare knees or squatting on their heels and 
folding their hands like the "little cherubs who look aloft.” 
At first I thought they were praying to me, but 1 afterward 
learned that they are required to do this in the interests of 
good order. No one can knock you over or spring at you 
with a knife while kneeling and keeping his hands folded 
before him. It looked odd to see hundreds of men squat¬ 
ting down as we went by. In some cases they took tubs 
of water from their heads, and in others laid down their 
tools that they might clasp their hands as we passed. 

I spent some time in the workshops, where almost every 
industry known to the Burman is carried on. In the big 
printing office are many presses, and 1 saw fully five 
76 


AT THE RANGOON JAIL 

hundred convicts at work there and in the type foundries 
and engraving plants. In the shop next to the printers 
were the carpenters and cabinet-makers, and farther on 
criminals were carving wood and weaving artistic wicker 
furniture. We next went by groups of tailors working out 
in the open. All dropped their tasks and folded their 
hands as we approached. 

Most of the expenses of the jail are paid by the profits 
on the prisoners' labour. They manufacture all sorts of 
things for the government departments, do much of the 
official printing and binding, and make most of the 
weapons and chains used in the jail. I saw scores of 
prisoners in the blacksmith shop forging swords and dirks 
to be used by the men who guard them, and also shaping 
iron collars for the necks of the incorrigibles. 

Machinery plays but a small part in the work of this 
prison, human muscle taking its place. The flour used in 
the kitchens is ground between millstones turned by pris¬ 
oners who sweat as they toil. I saw a gang at such work, 
and was told that each was expected to make and clean 
about fifty pounds of flour daily. Still, this is not con¬ 
sidered punishment or even hard labour, but just ordinary 
work, for quite half the flour of the Indian Empire is 
ground in similar hand mills. As for the sweating of the 
prisoners, any one who exerts himself, even in winter, in 
this hot climate, is soon drenched with perspiration. 

I was interested to see if the great saws and planers were 
still worked by treadmills as they were when I was in 
Rangoon years ago. I found the treadmills still in ex¬ 
istence, but idle, for they have been displaced by steam- 
driven machinery. It was not so long ago that the 
prisoners were used, like so many horses, to furnish the 

77 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


power for a complete sawmill. Imagine a long narrow 
room about thirty feet wide, in which six great cogwheels 
twelve feet in diameter are fastened side by side on a 
single axle running from one end of the room to the other. 
Let the cogs of this wheel be boards an inch thick, so 
made that they form a set of steps upon which men tread 
to make the wheel move by their weight. There is a bar 
above the wheel to which the toilers can hold, and to 
which they can, if necessary, be chained to keep them at 
work. 1 saw one hundred and fifty prisoners clinging to 
that bar as they turned the great wheels by climbing up 
the steps yet never getting any higher. The main shaft to 
which the wheels were attached was connected with the 
saws, planers, and other machinery, and the prisoners kept 
stepping up, up, up, to the jingling accompaniment of 
the chains about their legs. The men put at this task were 
mostly incorrigibles, who had committed the worst crimes. 

As far as I can learn, the prisoners are now fairly well 
treated. I saw no flogging, and I am told brutality is not 
tolerated. The severest punishment I saw was being 
administered to a gang of four men, who were exercising 
with cannon balls. This penalty is imposed upon prison¬ 
ers who cannot be controlled in other ways. Each man 
had a cannon ball weighing thirty-two pounds in his hands, 
and at the tap of a gong they all went through certain 
movements in unison. As the guard pounded the gong 
they lifted the iron balls from the ground. Another tap, 
and they raised them to their shoulders and then high over 
their heads. At other signals the prisonjgs lowered their 
burdens slowly to the ground. This exnausting exercise 
goes on for hours at a time, and I am told that the fatigue 
soon becomes so terrible that the men will welcome any 

78 



In the workshops of the Rangoon jail the prisoners manufacture all 
sorts of things for the government, do much of the official printing and 
binding, make furniture, and forge most of the weapons and chains used 
in the prison. 







Exercise in lifting and lowering cannon balls weighing thirty-two 
pounds each is imposed on unruly prisoners in the Rangoon jail. It is 
one of the most dreaded of the prison punishments. 


































AT THE RANGOON JAIL 

other punishment rather than be assigned to a cannon¬ 
ball drill. 

The Rangoon prison is excellently planned and well 
managed. The buildings are great sheds of one or two 
stories radiating from a centre like the spokes of a wheel. 
Guards stand in the central space so that they can keep an 
eye on a half dozen or more shops at one time. The 
dormitories are arranged in the same way. Everything 
is clean and sanitary and the prison death rate is only 
sixteen per thousand. 

Among the jail institutions is a large garden which 
furnishes enough fresh vegetables to prevent the prisoners 
from getting scurvy or beri-beri. The prisoners get plenty 
to eat to keep them in perfect condition, and their sleek, 
fat forms are in striking contrast to the lean bodies of the 
hard-working coolies from India. The convicts have three 
meals a day. Between five and six o’clock in the morning, 
before going to work, they have rice and vegetables, and a 
similar meal is given them between nine and ten. They 
have their last meal about four o’clock, when they quit for 
the day. Their meals are served simply. The men squat 
out of doors in long rows, each having a basin before him. 
Into this the attendants ladle the food, and the prisoners 
take it out with their fingers. 

In the case of the Indians, special consideration is given 
to their caste prejudices about eating. Among the 
Hindus, only the pariahs, or men of no caste, would eat 
from the tin vessels used by the other convicts, and I 
understand that the Indians generally prefer leaves as 
plates. They use only the right hand in eating. 

According to the government reports, the average cost 
of feeding each man is about eight cents a day. The ex- 

79 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


pense for clothing is likewise small, the average per head 
being about one dollar a year. The prisoners I saw were 
clad in little more than breech-cloths, although a few 
wore calico jackets as well. 

In this description, however, I have omitted mention 
of a costume that some of the criminals wear all their lives. 
I noticed several hill tribesmen with suits of tattooing 
that reached from waist to knees. Figures of tigers, 
monkeys, and other animals had been pricked into the 
skin with blue and black inks. In some instances there 
were love charms in red around the eyes. The ink used 
for such decorations is usually a solution of lamp black 
obtained from the smoke of sesamum oil. Tattooing was 
once common throughout the country but the custom has 
died out among the more civilized people and survives 
only among the primitive tribes of Upper Burma. 

As prisoners, the Burmese are usually not difficult to 
control. They are high strung and proud and will fight 
at the drop of a hat, especially when there is any slight 
to their personal dignity. Once in jail, however, they are 
amenable to discipline. In comparison with the population 
of the country, the number of convicts is large. But the 
jail population includes also what are known as the civil 
prisoners—men who have been incarcerated for debt. 
There is a special department of the Rangoon jail for such 
offenders, who are allowed a certain amount of money for 
rations, each man doing his own cooking. 

Neither in Burma nor in the rest of the Empire of India 
is the British government neglecting to keep abreast of the 
latest ideas and practices in prison reform. A few years 
ago a committee was appointed to investigate the whole 
question of prison administration with special reference 
80 


AT THE RANGOON JAIL 

to recent legislation and experience in western countries. 
The committee visited many prisons and industrial and 
reformatory schools in Great Britain, besides touring 
in the United States, Japan, and the Philippines. Its 
exhaustive report contained a number of important rec¬ 
ommendations, many of which are now being carried out. 
Attempts are being made to teach the convicts such trades 
as will be helpful to them in making a living upon their 
release and to assist them in becoming useful citizens. 


81 


CHAPTER X 


ELEPHANT LUMBER JACKS 

A GOOD part of to-day has been spent in watch¬ 
ing the elephants at work in the teak sawmills 
and lumber yards of Rangoon. Burma is now 
the world’s chief source of the best teak and 
annually produces hundreds of tons of this wood. It is 
largely used in the Orient for making furniture, as well as 
for railway ties and general construction purposes. One 
of its special uses in this part of the world is for building 
temples; practically all of their decorations in carved wood 
are of teak. It is the most valuable as well as one of 
the hardest and most durable of woods. Teak beams, 
which are known to have stood for more than one thou¬ 
sand years, have been found in good condition. The 
green wood is so heavy that the trees are first girdled 
in the forests and allowed to stand for two years until 
they dry out sufficiently for the logs to be floated down 
the streams. 

Both in the forests and at the ports elephants are indis¬ 
pensable in handling teak. The great beasts drag the 
logs to the streams and arrange them behind the booms; 
they stack the cut timbers and break up log jams. Every 
sawmill here has its elephants, and some companies use 
several hundred. The average operator, however, can 
afford but few, for the animals are costly, their prices 
ranging from fifteen hundred to five thousand dollars. 

82 



The Buddhist worshippers do not pray to Buddha or his images, but 
come to his shrines to renew their vows, to think upon the perfections of 
the great Enlightened One, and to repent of their sins. 





Great reclining Buddhas are scattered throughout Burma and Siam. 
There is a legend that when a child is born with ears reaching to his 
shoulders, then another Gautama will have come to enlighten the world. 





























ELEPHANT LUMBER JACKS 

The elephants come from the forests of Upper Burma. 
All those in the province not in captivity are owned by 
the government, which has a special department to look 
after them. The elephant commissioner keeps track of 
the wild herds and every year sends out hunting parties 
to catch the young bulls. The wild elephants are some¬ 
times trapped in pits and sometimes led into corrals by 
tame elephants trained for the purpose. The tame beasts 
mix with the wild ones and lead them into the pens, 
whereupon the hunters sort out those they wish to keep. 

Most of the cow elephants and a certain number of 
bulls are turned back into the forests. Males are best 
for lumbering because of their tusks, which they use as 
levers and upon which they balance the logs. After the 
bull calves have been trained they are sold to the lumber¬ 
men, a few being kept for government use. Like other 
animals, elephants can be trained effectively only when 
young, the best age being between three and fifteen years. 
A bull is full grown at twenty-two and at his best from 
twenty-five to forty-five. In captivity elephants do not 
ordinarily live more than thirty years, though normally 
they would reach a far greater age. There are exceptional 
cases of elephants more than a hundred years old. 

Teak lumbering seems to be one industry wherein ma¬ 
chinery is never likely entirely to replace animals. Gen¬ 
erally the teak trees grow in rough, hilly country, and in 
forests they are mixed with bamboo and other growth. 
The elephants can climb hills almost like mountain sheep, 
and they can drag the felled trees through the roughest 
kind of country. The best of them can pull logs weighing 
two and a half tons, and every animal used in this work is 
expected to move an average of one thousand board feet of 
83 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


logs a distance of a mile and a half or two miles in a day. 
As a rule, each elephant gets out from fifty to seventy logs 
in a season. The season lasts from about the first of June 
until the end of February, when it grows too hot for the 
animals to work and they go into rest camps until the 
next rains. 

Experienced lumbermen say that an elephant can be 
worked in the forests about one hundred and fifty days 
out of the year. In the busy season the animals are often 
used for three days in succession and then allowed ito rest 
for one. If they do not have enough work to do, their 
temples swell, a fatty substance oozes out of the glands 
behind their eyes, and they become savage. Then, unless 
they are chained up, they run amuck, uprooting bamboos, 
destroying trees, and trampling down everything in their 
path. 

The elephants do perhaps their best work in the streams. 
Here they are largely used for breaking up log jams and 
for working the logs down the beds of the water courses 
when there is not sufficient depth to float them. They go 
about knee-deep in the mud, “a-pilin’ teak in the sludgy, 
squdgy creek/' as Kipling says. In these marshy places 
nothing but elephants could do the work; tractors, for ex¬ 
ample, would be hopelessly stalled in the muck, but the 
elephants tread down through the soft mire to the hard 
pan beneath. 

These “people”, as the natives always call them, are 
magnificent swimmers and in high water they go from 
bank to bank pushing the logs about at the direction of 
the drivers perched on their heads. Sometimes all one 
can see of a beast is his trunk thrust up through the water 
so he can breathe, while his rider will be sitting up to his 
84 


ELEPHANT LUMBER JACKS 

waist in the wet. The elephants break up jams by push¬ 
ing out the key logs. They know the danger of being 
caught when a jam breaks and if they see such a thing 
about to happen they trumpet loudly and make for the 
bank or take out down stream as fast as they can go. 

I wish I could show you some of the huge beasts I saw 
at work in the Rangoon teak yards. They lifted great 
logs on their tusks and stacked them in piles. They 
carried timbers to the saws and laid the finished planks in 
order for shipment. Their every action showed reasoning 
power, and they seemed to calculate cause and effect. 
At one sawmill I saw two big fellows piling lumber to¬ 
gether. Each of them was directed by a silk-turbaned 
Burman seated upon his head. The men used both hands 
and heels, as well as word of mouth, to tell the elephants 
what to do, and jabbed their mounts with sharp brass 
hooks at any sign of disobedience. Either of these two 
elephants could lift on his tusks a log twelve inches in 
diameter, and carry it across the yard. He would kneel 
down before the middle of a log, thrust his tusks under it, 
and then, throwing his great trunk over the top to steady 
it, would get up and carry it to the truck upon which it 
was to be rolled up to the buzz saw. If the log proved 
very heavy he would rest one end on the ground and 
drag it. 

At another part of the yard I watched an elephant pil¬ 
ing teak. He would lift a timber and lay it down on the 
others as evenly as though he had measured each piece. 
Sometimes he would stop and squint at the pile to see if 
it were evenly stacked and then butt or kick into place 
any logs that might be out of line. Where it was neces¬ 
sary to carry two logs at a time the men tied a rope 
85 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


around them and the elephant would pick up the end of 
the rope with his trunk, put it over his tusk, and walk 
off with his load. The elephants are also trained to gather 
up the scraps of lumber and lay them so that the work¬ 
men can rope them into bundles. They help, too, in 
loading the steamers that come here for teak. In some 
places the elephants work in gangs, and I am told that 
there are boss elephants that keep the others up to their 
work and beat the loiterers with their trunks. In some 
yards each elephant has his own job, which he does regu¬ 
larly. 

These elephants at Rangoon are particular as to their 
working hours. They seem almost to watch the clock, for 
they get restless as the noon hour approaches, and stop 
now and then to wait for the bell. At twelve o'clock, 
when the whistle sounds and the bell rings, they drop 
instantly whatever they have on their tusks and bolt for 
the feeding sheds. 

I have been told that it takes the equivalent of the 
labour of three men to supply an elephant with his daily 
ration of bran, molasses, hay, and other food. A full- 
grown tusker at work in the forests requires as much as 
eight hundred pounds of food a day. In the jungle the 
animals are usually allowed to forage for themselves after 
their work is over, being trailed by their footmen and 
brought back into camp, no matter how far they wander. 
Each man knows the footprints of his own charge and 
pays no attention to other tracks. 

Each elephant must have his bath twice a day. At one 
of the yards I saw the beasts being washed. The ele¬ 
phants knelt down while buckets of water were thrown 
over them. After that their drivers scrubbed them with 
86 



Elephants in captivity demand careful handling and much attention, 
and must not be overworked. Among their requirements is a daily 
bath, followed by a scrub down with coarse brushes made of coconut fibre. 





Like most highly skilled workers, the elephants in the sawmills of 
Rangoon are expensive employees. Good ones cost from $1,500 to 
$5,000 each, and in captivity they seldom live more than thirty years. 




ELEPHANT LUMBER JACKS 

rough brushes of coconut husks and then curried them all 
over. As the water was dashed upon them they flapped 
their ears and grunted with enjoyment. 

I asked one of the men if the beasts were hard to handle. 
He replied: ‘‘No, but we must be always on guard. If one 
of them should grow angry he would not hesitate to attack 
us.” 

The elephant is a touchy creature. For example, if 
any living thing creeps under the blanket on his back he 
grows restless and does not work well. He will tremble 
like a woman at the sight of a mouse, for fear, perhaps, 
that the animal may run up his trunk. 

Some of the drivers teach their mounts to beg. After 
a visitor has watched one of these trained beggars at work 
for a while, the beast will throw up his head and salute, 
then put out his trunk for money. In case it is not forth¬ 
coming, he will fumble in the stranger’s pockets with his 
trunk. They tell me that this last trick never fails to 
work. As I left one of the sawmills 1 threw a piece of 
silver to the man on the biggest elephant. He rubbed 
the head of his mount with his heel and thereupon the 
elephant threw his great trunk high into the air and gave 
me a grand salute. 

Once Burma ranked with Siam as the land of the white 
elephant. King Thebaw had a palace for his white 
elephants, which were treated like royalty. When they 
went out umbrellas of white and gold were held over them, 
their ears were decorated with golden tassels, and their 
foreheads covered with golden plates. The man who 
found a white elephant and brought it to the palace was 
ennobled and exempted from paying taxes for the rest of 
his life. But when the British took over the country they 
87 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


deposed all the white elephants from their imperial posi¬ 
tion. Like the Siamese, many of the Burmese still believe 
that the white elephant is inhabited by the soul of some 
departed hero or king, and if one should be found the 
probability is he would not be set to work hauling logs, 
but would be given to some monastery and fed by the 
gifts of the faithful. 


88 


CHAPTER XI 


THE LIGHT OF ASIA 

I N WRITING of Buddha, Edwin Arnold called him 
“the Light of Asia.” To-day, it seems to me, the 
people of this part of the world are thinking of a 
material rather than a spiritual illumination and are 
looking to Burma for the real “light of Asia.” 

The Empire of India ranks seventh among the oil- 
producing regions of the world, and most of her produc¬ 
tion comes from wells in Burma. Of a total yearly output 
of seven and a half million barrels, Burma’s share is 
something like six million. The entire production is con¬ 
trolled by the Burma Oil Company, a British corporation 
that enjoys a far greater monopoly than our own Stan¬ 
dard Oil Company ever achieved. It has to pay a royalty 
to the government on every barrel of oil, but it is also 
largely protected by the administration, and no outsider 
is allowed even to prospect for oil in this province. 

As a matter of fact, the world’s first oil trust was es¬ 
tablished out here in India, and the output of Burma has 
always been in the hands of a monopoly. Long before 
our Pennsylvania oil was discovered, the Burma fields were 
controlled by twenty-four families in two villages of the 
Yenangyaung oil region, from which most of the petroleum 
still comes. Generations ago these people gained posses¬ 
sion and tied up the oil lands so tightly that no one else 
could dig for petroleum, much less own an oil well. The 
89 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


members of this group of families were known as Yoya, 
and their chiefs were called Twinsayo. Shares in the 
property were passed on from father to son, or, in case 
there were no descendants, went only to other families 
within the group, so that the corporation was decidedly 
close. 

At first the Yenangyaung owners disposed of the oil 
wherever they pleased. Then a little over half a century 
ago King Mindon Min declared himself a partner in 
their monopoly and decreed that the entire output must 
be sold over to him. 

For a time after the Burma Oil Company began its 
work farther down the river valley, some of the Yoya 
continued taking out oil as their forefathers had done. 
They broke up the rock with pointed lumps of iron, weigh¬ 
ing about one hundred and fifty pounds, and carried the 
debris out in baskets. When the oil stratum was reached 
they waited for the petroleum to seep in and then raised 
it in buckets, which were filled by men lowered in rope 
slings to the bottom. The wells were seldom more than 
two hundred and fifty feet deep. As there was much gas 
in them, the miners could stay below but a few minutes. 
In order to make the most of their time, they blindfolded 
themselves before descending, so that their eyes were 
adjusted to the darkness by the time they reached the 
bottom. To protect their heads from the rocks and 
earth continually falling from the sides of the wells, they 
wore stiff hats made of palm leaves. All the oil thus 
produced was sold to the Burma Oil Company, which 
paid such low prices that the owners could make little 
more than fair wages. Finally the company bought them 
all out. 


90 


THE LIGHT OF ASIA 


The methods now used are thoroughly modern, and 
largely American. In fact, our people have in Burma, as 
they have in nearly every oiher oil field in the world, a 
monopoly on the drillers' jobs. In boring a well, the rope 
to which the drill is attached breaks every now and then, 
leaving the tool stuck in the hole. The Americans seem 
to be the only ones who have mastered the trick of drop¬ 
ping a grappling hook, catching the drill, and bringing it 
up. Moreover, our people are the only ones who can 
properly sink the iron pipes, or casings. 

In the early stages of the drilling in the Burma fields the 
oil was found at a depth of five hundred feet, but recent 
wells have gone down several thousand feet. There are no 
flowing wells and the average output is far under that of 
wells in the United States. 

Although the people of Burma and elsewhere in the 
Orient have been using petroleum in one form or another 
for generations, our own American oil trust made it the 
modern illuminant of the East. You remember how 
some years ago the Standard Oil Company found itself 
facing the fact that electricity and gas were replacing 
kerosene for lighting our homes in the United States. 
New markets were desperately needed, and accordingly 
the company began a campaign to educate the big Asiatic 
populations to the use of kerosene. It erected huge stor¬ 
age tanks along our Pacific coast and set up other tanks, 
holding tens of thousands of barrels, along the China coast, 
at Shanghai, Tientsin, and even at Hankow, six hundred 
miles up the Yangtse Kiang. Great factories were also 
constructed for making the oil cans now found in even 
the most remote districts of the Far East. 

Here on the Irrawaddy below Rangoon there are 


91 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


storage tanks, which belong to the Burma Oil Com¬ 
pany. Each will hold half a million gallons of oil and I 
can see at least two score or so from where I am writing. 

The Burma Oil Company is one of the world's big mo¬ 
nopolies, and has its own fleet of tank steamers for shipping 
petroleum to all parts of the earth. Pipe-lines have been 
laid to Syriam from the fields, which are situated some 
three hundred miles up the river. At first the pipes were 
laid on the surface, but they were so much affected by 
temperature changes that later they were put under¬ 
ground. 

I have gone through the refineries at Syriam, which 
cover a hundred acres or more along the banks of the 
Irrawaddy, about sixteen miles from its mouth. I shall 
not attempt to describe the processes except to say that 
enormous furnaces are kept hot with oil fires and that the 
boilers above them have pipes to catch the vapour as the 
oil boils. Refining petroleum is much like distilling 
whisky. The crude oil is heated to a vapour, which 
passes into cold pipes, where it is condensed to a liquid 
and runs out as pure oil. The machinery at Syriam is 
up-to-date and a good deal of it came from the United 
States. American refining experts have been imported, 
also, with the result that Burma's oil is now of good 
quality and colourless instead of having a yellowish tinge, 
as formerly. 

The residue after the first distillation is carried from 
boiler to boiler, until all the oil has been extracted. A part 
of what is left is turned into paraffin wax, and in the end 
there is also a product which is made into a coke superior 
to that obtained from coal. The wax is used chiefly for 
candles, which are manufactured in large quantities to 
92 


THE LIGHT OF ASIA 


be burned at the Buddhist shrines. The largest of the 
candles are great, round, tapering cylinders six and a half 
feet tall and as thick as an elephant's leg. Such candles 
cost about fifteen or twenty dollars. 

Another petroleum product consumed in large quantities 
in British India is the heavy, white, tasteless, mineral oil 
that we use as medicine. The Indians import a great deal 
of this from the United States, not for medicinal pur¬ 
poses, but for adulterating their cooking oils. 

The labour employed in the Syriam refineries is almost 
altogether Indian, and largely from Madras. Among 
the workers I saw little chaps, who should have been in 
school, packing candles and carrying heavy loads. They 
worked with all their might for wages of but a few cents 
a day. I rode about through the plant on a little car 
pushed by four coolies, and before leaving I took a ride in 
a big automobile in and out among the great tanks where 
the oil is stored. 

The Burmese oil trust has other refineriesat Dunneedaw, 
on the opposite bank of the Irrawaddy, and is steadily 
adding to its enterprises. It builds its own barges and 
carries on almost as many different activities as the Stand¬ 
ard Oil Company. The whole province is now being 
prospected, with the hope of finding new oil territory. 
The present fields extend over an area of only about one 
hundred square miles. In addition to the developed 
fields in Burma, the Indian Empire has another oil re¬ 
gion. This is on the west, and includes Baluchistan and 
the Punjab, the same oil belt being continued beyond 
the borders of British India into Persia. Of the two, the 
eastern field is by far the more important, and Burma 
furnishes the greater part of the oil and gasoline used in 

93 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


all India. While Rangoon and Mandalay, like other 
large towns, have electric lights, throughout the country 
a vast and increasing number of homes are lighted only by 
kerosene lamps, and the product of petroleum has largely 
displaced vegetable oil as an illuminant. Consequently 
there is a big market for Burma's oil right at her doors. 

Another monopoly in Burma besides the oil trust is 
that in rubies. The province produces the finest of these 
stones and furnishes most of the world's supply. The 
industry is in the hands of the Burma Ruby Mines 
Company, which is operating in the Mogok Valley, about 
ninety miles from Mandalay. A region there four 
thousand feet above sea level and covering about sixty 
square miles has produced more and better rubies than 
any other place upon earth. In some years it has yielded 
stones worth a half million dollars; and a few years ago 
there was found a single stone, the Peace Ruby, which 
sold for one hundred thousand dollars. 

A fine ruby is more valuable than the average diamond 
of the same weight. A five-carat stone of the colour 
known as “pigeon’s blood" will sell for several times as 
much as a five-carat diamond, and the difference in price 
increases with the size. A ruby weighing eleven carats 
was sold in England for thirty-five thousand dollars, 
whereas a diamond of that size might not bring more than 
one fifth as much. The largest ruby ever known came 
from Tibet. It weighed two thousand carats, but it was 
not of the finest quality. Some of the best stones are 
owned by Indian rajahs, who consider them among the 
most beautiful of gems. 

Modern methods are now used in working the ruby 
mines. The pumps and other machinery are operated 

94 



Tattooing of the legs, once common throughout the province, now 
survives only among the more primitive peoples of upper Burma. Among 
these are the Kachins, who live along the Chinese border. 









The Burma oil fields are sown thick with wells, but it is not a case of 
competitors trying to drain each other’s claims, for the entire output 
belongs to a monopoly. The pipes are often put down several thou¬ 
sand feet and the average production per well is far below that in the 
United States. 



THE LIGHT OF ASIA 

by hydro-electric power and the processes and equipment 
are similar to those employed in the diamond mines 
of South Africa. The stones are run over pulsators, 
which separate the heavier gravel from the lighter, and 
the precious stones are sorted out. The rubies obtained 
are graded by gem experts, who are all Europeans. The 
best stones are sent to London and Paris, while those of 
lesser value are auctioned off to the local dealers about 
the mines. The latter are great gamblers, and will run 
up the prices if they think a stone may have a valuable 
centre. 

Among the rubies are found spinels, stones which look 
much like the true ruby, but which are not rubies. Under 
certain light tests the real rubies will show a violet or blue 
cast, which is a sign of their genuineness and distinguishes 
them from spinels and synthetic gems. The rubies lie in 
matrices in the rocks, and also in clay. With them are 
sometimes found sapphires—blue, yellow, and green—as 
well as garnets and spinels. 

I have learned from a man of wide experience in Burma 
and India that out here where the rubies are mined it is 
hard to get genuine stones. Many of those offered to 
travellers in Rangoon are synthetic gems made in Paris 
by melting silica and colouring materials in the heat of an 
oxy-acetylene flame. This man tells me that a wealthy 
friend of his commissioned him to purchase some rubies 
in Rangoon. He went to the leading jeweller in the city, 
who declared that he would try his best to get the genuine 
articles but could not guarantee any above the size of the 
end of a lead pencil. Ten days later, the jeweller had been 
able to secure only four that stood the test. The pawn¬ 
brokers here practically never lend money on rubies and 


95 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 

sapphires, because such a large proportion of these stones 
are artificial. The synthetic gems, by the way, do not 
have any flaws, whereas the good stones often do. 

Burma is famous also for its jade. It is mined in the 
northern part of the country and the best of it is sold to 
the Chinese, who prize it highly. They employ the word 
“jade” much as we do the term “pure gold.” A fine girl 
is a jade girl, a beautiful hand is a jade hand, and a jade 
foot is one that is always on time. Nearly every well- 
to-do Chinese girl has jade earrings and bracelets, and 
many have jade hairpins and brooches. In Burma the 
stone is often used for ear plugs as well as for rings and 
other jewellery. 

The jade found in northern Burma is of a beautiful shade 
of green, which is greatly desired. The mines have always 
been regarded as the property of the Kachins, whose ex¬ 
clusive right to the stone was never questioned by the 
native kings. The mines are still in the hands of the 
native chiefs of the tribe and are worked by the crudest 
methods. The rocks are first cracked by building fires 
upon them and then broken apart by crowbars and wedges, 
and shaped up with hammers into sizes convenient for 
transportation. The annual output is valued at about a 
quarter of a million dollars. Jade is not found anywhere 
in large quantities, but occurs in small veins or pockets 
scattered here and there among the rocks. When a vein 
is cleaned out, often no more is found near by, and that is 
the reason why modern mining methods would not pay. 

Practically all the jade produced in the world comes 
from Burma, though some, of a rather different chemical 
composition, is found in Mexico and eastern Turkestan. 
As the visible supply approaches exhaustion, the stone 
96 


THE LIGHT OF ASIA 


becomes more and more costly. The ordinary jade of 
commerce is translucent, but the best grade, the kind the 
wealthy Chinese buy, is transparent and looks not unlike 
green glass. A jade necklace of perfectly transparent 
beads may cost as much as fifteen hundred dollars in 
Rangoon, whereas the ordinary kind would bring only 
thirty or forty. 

Besides her oil, rubies, and jade, Burma has rich silver 
and lead mines that are operated by the most up-to-date 
methods, and she has also deposits of zinc, tin, and tung¬ 
sten. The lack of railroads and of permanent labour are 
both handicaps to the exploitation of her mineral wealth. 
The mine labourers are largely Yunnanese from South 
China, who leave the mines for several months in the wet 
season to work on their farms at home. Efforts are being 
made to break up this annual migration by improving 
labour conditions and providing hospitals and better 
lodgings at the mines, but the problem still remains per¬ 
plexing. 


97 


CHAPTER XII 


THE WOMEN OF BURMA 

I HAVE come up “the road to Mandalay/' the city 
that most of us know only through Kipling's song, 
but a place long famous throughout the East as the 
capital of the native kings of Burma. Although the 
British have transferred the seat of government to Ran¬ 
goon some four hundred miles down the Irrawaddy, 
Mandalay remains in many respects one of the most 
interesting places in the country. For one thing, it is 
pure Burmese, and here one sees best the people of Burma 
without the mixture of other races that makes Rangoon 
one of the cosmopolitan cities of the world. 

I like especially the girls of Mandalay. You will know 
why if you go with me to the bazaars and walk through 
the immense buildings filled with stalls in which hundreds 
of smiling women are sitting on platforms in the midst of 
their wares. Here is one selling silk stuffs for skirts. 
She has the most delicate pinks, blues, yellows, and greens, 
some of them striped and checked with other gay colours. 
See, a girl has come up and is making a purchase. The 
fair merchant takes out of her mouth a cheroot as big 
around as a stick of shaving soap and lays it aside while 
she measures the goods with a yardstick. A half-dozen 
plump girls are sitting on their heels near by watching 
the bargaining. 

Now look at the ears of the girls. They are shaped 
98 



“Not many Burmese women can read or write; for the monks cannot 
teach the girls as they do the boys. In the cities, however, the British 
have established schools for girls, and in Rangoon a class of girls did sums 
for my edification.” 




At all times and places, at home or abroad, the men, the women, and 
even the children of Burma smoke. Their big white cheroots are milder 
than they look, as they are a mixture of pith and tobacco. 









THE WOMEN OF BURMA 

like beautiful shells, except at the lobes, which are elon¬ 
gated and plugged with cylinders of gold, silver, or amber. 
Every girl wears two or more bracelets and several rings. 
All are bareheaded, and their long black hair is done up in 
a knot on the crown. 

There are crowds of women buying and selling in the 
bazaars, and hundreds of peddlers move about with trays 
on their heads. Here comes one selling fruits. She has a 
bowl of coconuts and bananas and cries her wares as 
she goes. Behind her is a flower peddler, and farther on 
are maidens with vegetables, fish, fruit, and all sorts of 
things. The fish woman is selling a trout. She has chop¬ 
ped off its head, and the fish bleeds as she handles it. 
She has plugs in her ears and her lips are wrapped around 
a mighty cheroot at which she puffs as she weighs the fish. 

We go to the street of the tailors, where the girls are 
busily stitching away on sewing machines. The machines 
are run by hand, and are not mounted on stands like those 
we use, for in the East almost everybody squats on the 
ground for work of this kind. The bazaar seamstresses 
will make you a dress while you wait. We stop before a 
pretty silk seller, and I buy a yellow striped skirt to send 
home. The girl sits on her feet, her little brown toes 
peeping out from under her pink skirt. She looks inno¬ 
cent and I feel safe in making the purchase at her own 
price. She offers me a whiff from her cigar as I try the 
goods, and upon my declining, gives it to her sister and 
then comes down to business. She pulls out one piece of 
bright silk after another and explains the good points of 
each, laughing and chatting the while. In the end, I find 
I have paid three times what I should, but the girl is so 
charming it is worth twice the money. 

99 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


This girl is one of the belles of the bazaar, and typical 
of the fair maidens of Burma. She is as straight as an 
arrow, and as plump as a partridge, and her rich Burmese 
dress makes the most of all her charms. The women here 
are clad in two garments. One is a jacket of silk, cotton, 
or gauze reaching to the hips, and the other a bright silken 
skirt wrapped around the waist and falling to the feet. 
The skirt is a straight piece of cloth fastened by a half 
hitch and with the opening down the front. It is so 
tight that when the girl walks rapidly she shows her 
bare legs to the knee; but by throwing out her heels and 
going pigeon-toed she prevents the folds from parting 
to an immodest degree. In lower Burma many of the 
skirts are now sewn together on account of the comments 
that foreigners have made upon the costume. The 
dresses are of different lengths, and the richer women often 
have skirts that trail on the ground. 

My fair merchant wore a jacket of gauze, and her skirt 
reached as high as her armpits. The jacket was so thin 
that the brown neck, shoulders, and arms might be seen 
through the sheer fabric. She had a beautiful face. Her 
eyes were large, soft, and brown, with eyelids just a 
trifle oblique, and high-arching, delicate brows. Her 
hair, which was glossy black, was rolled up in a pyramid 
on the crown, and fastened there with a bright golden 
comb. She wore a necklace to which were hung pendants 
of amber. There were seven gold bracelets on each of her 
wrists, rings on her fingers, and gold plugs in her ears. 
She was, I judge, about fifteen years of age, but girls 
mature here at thirteen, and she was a woman grown. 

All the girls wear ear plugs. As a maiden approaches 
the marriageable age, which is usually twelve or thirteen. 


ioo 


THE WOMEN OF BURMA 


her ears are bored, and the ceremony is as important to 
her as is the coming-out party to an American debutante. 
The rite is performed when the fortune teller has declared 
that the stars are propitious. A big feast is prepared 
which all of the friends and relatives attend in their best 
clothes. A professional ear-borer pierces the maiden’s 
ears, using thick wires of pure gold for the rich and silver 
ones for the poor. 

When the crucial moment has arrived the girl is laid 
upon a mat in the back of the room and her relatives hold 
her there while the borer thrusts the wire through each 
lobe and twists the metal around into a ring, which is left 
in the ear. While this is going on the little maid’s cries 
are drowned by the music, talk, and laughter. Anyway, 
her tears are soon dried, for she herself is eager for the 
operation and proud of being a debutante. Afterward 
there is the feast. 

The ring placed in the ear is pulled back and forth until 
the hole heals. It is then taken out, and the little cylinder 
of finely rolled gold is pressed in. This is gradually opened 
from week to week, stretching the hole larger and larger. 
The poorest people, who cannot afford silver or gold, 
put stems of elephant grass in their daughters’ ears, in¬ 
serting stem after stem until at last the hole in the lobe 
will hold a bunch as big around as your thumb. After the 
ears are well healed, plugs or hollow pipes are inserted. 

Some stretch these holes until they reach an incredible 
size. I have seen peasant girls with ear holes so large 
that a napkin ring could be thrust through one. There is 
not a merchant in the bazaar at Mandalay who could not 
carry a cheroot in her ear, as, indeed, many of them do. 

All Burma smokes—men, women, girls, and tiny children. 

IOI 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


Some people even say that infants in arms alternate puffs 
from their mothers' cheroots with drafts from the breast, 
but this the Burmese indignantly deny, vowing that 
smoking is forbidden to children until they have learned to 
walk. Everywhere I see four-year-olds enjoying their big 
smokes. The cheroots are worse to look at than to con¬ 
sume, however, for they are extremely mild. They are from 
six to eight inches long and about an inch in diameter. The 
filling is of the pith of a plant mixed with chopped tobacco 
leaves, stiff pieces of pith keeping the loose tobacco from 
the mouth. About this mixture is wrapped a teak leaf 
and the ends are tucked in and tied with red silk or string. 
All the girls are adept in making cheroots, and at a party 
one girl may roll for the crowd, the big cigars being passed 
about from one guest to another so that each may take a 
whiff. I doubt not that in courtships the girl makes the 
cigar and she and her sweetheart take love smokes turn 
about. 

The Burmese girl is far freer in her marriage than are 
her sisters in India, Japan, China, Korea, and other 
oriental countries. The Japanese girl weds the man 
picked out by a matchmaker, the Korean takes one at the 
dictation of her parents, while, upon marriage, the Chinese 
maiden becomes virtually the slave of her mother-in-law. 
In Burma, however, I understand that there are many 
love matches, and that if the parents object the young 
people sometimes elope. There are but few marriages for 
money. 

In Burma there is no seclusion of girls and women such 
as exists in Mohammedan countries and among the 
Hindus. Here the maiden is accorded life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of a husband as freely as in any western coun- 


102 



In Burma, more than elsewhere in the Orient, a young woman is ac¬ 
corded the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of a husband. Many 
Burmese maidens become street merchants for the sake of the matri¬ 
monial opportunities. 






The great banyan tree of Calcutta, the pride of the Royal Botanical 
Gardens, covers an area nearly one thousand feet in circumference. 
From its branches some six hundred stems have come down to earth and 
taken root. 







THE WOMEN OF BURMA 


try. From childhood she is used to association with boys. 
As a young girl she meets the youths of her own age in the 
bazaars, on the streets, at the shrines, and particularly at 
the typical Burmese entertainments known as pwes. 
The pwes take place in the larger towns on nearly all moon¬ 
light nights and consist of acting, singing, dancing, and 
clowning that last from eight in the evening until sunrise. 
The performers are paid by the person giving the enter¬ 
tainment, which is free to all who care to come. The 
Burmese maiden of the large towns now shares with her 
sweetheart a joy unknown to her grandmother’s courting 
days. She goes with him to the movies, and, judging from 
the lurid advertisements the native theatre managers 
publish in the newspapers, she finds there as many thrills 
as do any of her sisters on Third Avenue. 

But it is said that the quickest way to attract a desirable 
husband is to set up a market stall. I understand that in 
the smaller towns there is scarcely a house where the 
women have not a booth for the sale of cheap articles, the 
profits from which furnish pin money for the wives and 
daughters, while the trading gives the girls matrimonial 
and social opportunities. 

The Burmese marry early and one is an old bachelor 
or an old maid if the end of the teens finds him or her un¬ 
wed. During the courtship the young man brings presents 
of oranges or sweets; he writes verses in praise of his lady’s 
beautiful ear plugs, and she in return gives him cigars and 
perhaps a turban or scarf of her own weaving. 

The marriage is usually little more than a festival at the 
house of the girl. Here the young couple eat rice together, 
join hands, and say they intend to live as man and wife. 
Indeed, many marriages are entered into without any 


103 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


ceremony at all. Among some people the wedding is kept 
secret for a time, for the young couple do not like to be 
stared at or have stones thrown on their house-roofs, as 
is sometimes the custom. At the home ceremony they 
bill and coo, feeding one another as do the birds; and they 
drink tea with their parents and parents-in-law. The 
groom makes the bride a present of a silken skirt or piece 
of jewellery, and he is also expected to furnish the wedding 
breakfast. After marriage the two go into seclusion for a 
honeymoon of several days and then make their home in 
the house of the bride's parents. It would be considered 
presumptuous for them to set up their own establishment 
immediately after marriage, as the man is supposed to work 
a certain time for his wife’s people. A Burmese girl does 
not change her name when she marries, and wears no 
wedding ring. 

Burma is famous in all the Orient, and in all the world, 
for that matter, as being a land of women’s rights. As 
one man said to me, 

“Every husband who behaves himself lives at home, 
tends the rice crops, and minds the children. If he 
does not perform these duties satisfactorily his wife 
sends him out to work and collects his wages from his 
employer!” 

In the markets when you buy you deal with a woman, 
even when her husband is sitting right beside her in the 
booth. You may talk over the goods and the purchase 
with him, but it is she who takes the cash. A married 
woman can hold property in her own name. She manages 
her own money, and has an equal share with her husband 
in all that they make together. She has a right to her own 
earnings, and if divorced she takes back all the money she 
104 


THE WOMEN OF BURMA 


has brought into the family and half of what has been 
accumulated since the wedding. 

As to divorces, these are not difficult for either party to 
obtain. Any discontented husband or wife may go before 
the elders and claim a separation, which is seldom refused. 
There are also special grounds for divorce. If the husband 
is idle or lazy the wife can claim a separation. If he is 
unable to support her, if he is always ailing or becomes a' 
cripple after his marriage, or if he ill-treats her in any way, 
she can demand that the tie be broken. 

On the other hand, the husband also has plenty of 
grounds for divorce. If his wife does not love him, if she 
visits places to which he objects, if she persistently dis¬ 
obeys him, or if she gives him no sons, he may claim his 
freedom. Nevertheless, divorces are not much more 
common than in the United States. They are hardly 
respectable; the man who enters a monastery to get rid 
of a wife is called a run-away, while a divorced woman is 
said to be always anxious to marry again. Indeed, mar¬ 
riage is considered the best state for woman, for as one of 
the Burmese proverbs puts it: 

Monks are beautiful when they are lean, four-footed animals when 
they are fat, men when they are learned, and women when they are 
married. 

In spite of all their freedom, or maybe because of it, 
the women of Burma are never loud or aggressive. One 
hears no clamour for women's rights as such, and, though 
the women now have the vote, the militant feminist is 
yet to be born in Burma. The girls I have seen are modest 
and self-respecting. In their manner they are friendly 
and natural, but never forward, and they seem to me more 


105 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 

like what we call ladies than any other women of the Far 
East. 

The Burmese wife has fewer housekeeping troubles than 
her American sister. If she belongs to the well-to-do 
classes she has servants, and even if not, she has but little 
hard work. The ordinary house out in the country has 
two or three rooms, with a veranda in front, and is built 
of wood or bamboo raised upon posts about eight feet 
apart. The floors are of thin planking or bamboo cane, 
and the roof is generally of thatch or leaves. In the larger 
towns roofs of galvanized iron are now seen. There is no 
furniture in our sense of the word. The people sleep upon 
mats and rest their heads on bamboo pillows. There is 
little sweeping to do, and during most of the year meals 
are cooked out of doors. In the rainy season the cook¬ 
ing is done inside on a fire built in a square box full of earth. 
The utensils consist of two or three earthen pots, some jars 
for water, several coconut ladles, bowls for rice, and a big 
round lacquered tray which serves as a dining table. 

The staple food of the Burmese is rice, which is boiled 
or steamed, and eaten with fish paste and peppers. Noth¬ 
ing is drunk with the meals, and after them only water. 
Few of the Burmese eat meat, for it is contrary to the 
Buddhist religion to consume anything that has life, the 
chief exception being fish, which is eaten both fresh and 
dried. Fish imperfectly cured so that it has a rather 
“high” flavour is esteemed as a relish from Java to 
Bombay. In India it is called “Bombay duck.” Served 
with rice and curry, it is even relished by some Europeans, 
just as they enjoy Camembert or Limburger cheese. 
There are, however, occasional cases of ptomaine poison¬ 
ing among foreigners who have eaten this native dish. A 
106 


THE WOMEN OF BURMA 


favourite meal in Burma is a fish curry with rice. The 
family usually sit around the rice dish, each having a 
little bowl for curry and a larger one for rice. Each 
helps himself, taking from the rice platter as much as he 
can pick up in his hands. After eating, everyone is 
expected to wash his own dishes and each goes to the water 
jar to rinse out his mouth. The hands are washed both 
before and after meals. 

Not many Burmese women can either read or write. 
The monks cannot teach the girls as they do the boys, so 
that outside the cities it is the exception to find a native 
girl who is able to read. The British officials are trying to 
remedy this condition, and have established schools for 
girls. There are now something like seventy thousand 
girls in the government schools, but most of them are 
located in the large towns, and there are still almost 
none in the villages. I have visited some of the schools 
and I find the little ones quite as quick as our American 
children of the same ages. In Rangoon I heard a class of 
eleven girls, about ten years old, recite in arithmetic. 
For my edification they did sums in addition and subtrac¬ 
tion at the command of their teacher, and recited the 
multiplication table in Burmese. 

The teacher told me of a queer custom the Burmese have 
in selecting names for their children. A girl is named 
about two weeks after birth at a meeting of the relatives 
and friends. The name is chosen by rule according to the 
day of the week upon which the child was born, certain 
consonants being used for each week day and the vowels for 
Sunday. The little one's name must begin with a letter 
belonging to the day on which she was born. There are 
thus Sunday girls, Monday girls, Tuesday girls, and girls 


107 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


for each day in the week. All the little Miss Wednesdays 
have names beginnning with R or Y, the Fridays with Th 
and H, while the Saturdays are T’s, D's, and N's. The 
names are often poetic, a girl may be called Miss Perfume, 
Miss Perfection, or Miss Like-Which-There-Is-Not. At 
the moment of a child's birth the astrologers note its 
horoscope and pick out the stars that are to control its 
destiny. At the same time birth candles made of red or 
yellow wax are burnt before Buddha, and on the name 
days similar candles are lighted at the shrines. 

The atmosphere of Burma and the lovable ways of the 
people remind me much of Samoa. Like the islanders of 
the South Seas, they are a happy, smiling lot. In their 
homes, in their dress, and in the care of their persons they 
are the essence of neatness and cleanliness. Every child 
learns to swim almost as soon as it learns to walk. Here 
one gets an impression of gayety, flowers, and plenty, 
and the people themselves call their country “The Fair 
Land East of India." One of Burma's advantages is the 
fact that it is one of the few regions of the Orient that is 
not over-populated. As I have said, this province grows 
all the rice its people can eat, and has a great deal for the 
rest of the world besides. 

Up to the time of Thebaw, who was overthrown by the 
British in 1885, the native kings of Burma lived in the 
magnificence becoming the rulers of such a land. The old 
Mandalay that was their capital centred in the inner city, 
the enclosure now known as Fort Dufferin. It is a vast 
square, measuring a mile and a quarter long on each 
side, and surrounded by a red-brick wall twenty-six feet 
high. On each of the faces of the wall are thirteen teak 
watchtowers. In the time of the great Mindon Min they 
108 


THE WOMEN OF BURMA 


were all richly gilded. About the wall is a moat of clear 
water seventy-five yards wide crossed by five wooden 
bridges. Once there passed along this moat royal barges 
gilt from stem to stern and propelled by fifty or sixty 
rowers in livery. 

In the flat centre of the fort enclosure, or cantonment, is 
the Royal Palace, which the British government is care¬ 
fully preserving as a fine example of Burmese imperial 
architecture. To-day it is all deserted, though at one 
time the huge audience hall was used as a church for the 
barracks and the Lily Throne Room was occupied by the 
Upper Burma Club of the British, which now has its own 
quarters in another part of the cantonment. Inside the 
walls, too, is Government House, where the Governor of 
Burma stays when he comes up from Rangoon. 

Mandalay is sown thick with pagodas. I think there 
must be a thousand in all. It is a sort of Mecca for the 
Buddhists. The holiest place of all, perhaps, is the 
Arakan Pagoda with its famous image of Buddha, said to 
be the only one in existence that was made during the life¬ 
time of the sage. It was originally set up at Akyab some 
three hundred miles away over the Arakan Yoma Moun¬ 
tains from Mandalay. As the workers tried vainly there 
to put together the sections of the big brass statue, Buddha 
himself saw their struggles from afar and came and em¬ 
braced the pieces seven times. When he stood away it 
was seen that the parts had all been perfectly joined to¬ 
gether. In 1784 the statue was brought to the capital 
where a splendid seven-roofed temple was built to house it. 
In its treasure chamber are now resting the ashes of 
Buddha found some years ago at Peshawar. A special 
shrine is to be put up for these relics, however, on a spur of 
109 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


Mandalay Hill, which overlooks the city. In a big tank 
in the courtyard of the pagoda are sacred turtles which are 
stuffed to capacity with the offerings of rice by which the 
givers gain merit. 

Cn one side of Mandalay Hill are grouped the so-called 
“ Seven hundred and thirty pagodas/' though I believe 
that these total only some four hundred and fifty. One of 
the kings of Burma was most anxious that the holy books 
of Buddha should have enduring form, so he commissioned 
the most learned of the priests to transcribe the purest 
version, which he then had engraved on seven hundred and 
twenty-nine large stones of the same pattern. The 
stones were set up in an enclosure about half a mile square 
and each was covered by a small domed building to pro¬ 
tect it from the weather. 


CHAPTER XIII 


CALCUTTA 

S OME days ago I left behind me the silken-skirted 
Burmese, the lofty spire of the Golden Pagoda, 
| and the silvery temple bells of Rangoon, and 
sailed down the Irrawaddy on a British India 
steamer bound for Calcutta. The ship was one of three 
thousand tons, with English officers and Indian sailors and 
servants. The cabin stewards were dark-faced, heavy- 
bearded men of forty, wearing black velvet caps, white 
gowns to their knees, and tight white cotton trousers, 
below which showed their bare feet and ankles. The 
dining saloon waiters wore belted gowns and white Benga¬ 
li turbans with bands of blue ribbon. 

We were several days on the Bay of Bengal. Out at sea 
the water was indigo, but when we entered the mouth of the 
Ganges it was as brown and soupy as that below Rangoon. 

I took a bath when we reached the pilot brig, about a 
hundred miles from Calcutta, and after I had drained the 
tub there were my fooprints in the mud, almost as plain as 
those that frightened Robinson Crusoe on his desert island. 

The Ganges is as heavily laden with silt as the Nile and 
is said to carry a volume of dirt five times as great as that 
brought down by the Mississippi. The deposit amounts 
to hundreds of millions of tons every year and the great 
bars it builds along the shore make the work of piloting 
the ships dangerous in the extreme. 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


Like those of the Irrawaddy, the British pilots of Cal¬ 
cutta are a close corporation. There are considerably 
under a hundred of them, and they monopolize the Ganges, 
or, rather, the Hooghly, for it is on the Hooghly branch of 
the Ganges delta that the ships go up to the city. The 
pilots are paid so much for each vessel brought in and some 
of them make more than four thousand dollars a year. To 
belong to this association a man must serve an apprentice¬ 
ship and obtain a first mate’s license. He spends five years 
at low wages learning the river, and then graduates to full 
rank of pilot. The Hooghly cannot be navigated at night 
and the ships go in with the tides. As the latter rise there 
is often a bore which reaches a height of seven feet, and 
which makes the risks much greater. 

As we coasted the shores of the Hooghly we passed 
jungles and low-lying, malaria-infested lands. A little 
farther up the houses began, and in the vicinity of Cal¬ 
cutta the banks were punctuated now and then with the 
tall smoke-stacks of jute mills. Near them were big brick 
structures where rough bagging is made to be shipped all 
over the globe. Jute is the cheapest of the commercial 
fibres and all of it appears to be spun and woven either in 
India or in Dundee, Scotland. Calcutta sends vast 
quantities to the United States, and much of our cotton 
crop is baled in the coarse fabric made here on the banks 
of the Hooghly. Thus, the thousands of Indians working 
this fibre are in a measure dependent upon us and our 
cotton fields for their wages. The manufactured jute 
annually exported is worth about one hundred and 
twenty-five million dollars. 

The Hooghly is filled with shipping. Ocean steamers 
heavily loaded are continually going in or out with the 


112 


CALCUTTA 


tides, for a foreign trade of more than six hundred million 
dollars a year is handled in the port of Calcutta. Cal¬ 
cutta claims to be the premier city of India and boasts 
of herself as the “Second City of the British Empire.” 

Lying near the mouth of the two great river systems of 
the Ganges and the Brahmaputra, Calcutta receives the 
produce of their fertile valleys for shipment abroad. 
The city is also situated about midway between Europe 
and the Far East and thus becomes a meeting place for 
the commerce between the peoples of the Occident and 
the Orient. Its port, which stretches some ten miles 
along the river, is one of the busiest in the world, and 
building its new docks was the biggest job of the kind 
ever done. 

Most of the industries are carried on outside the city 
limits or in the suburbs. Howrah, on the opposite side of 
the Hooghly, is the terminus of three great railway systems 
and headquarters for the jute and other factories. These 
employ altogether some eighty thousand men, chiefly 
recruited from up-country. Between it and Calcutta is 
an immense floating bridge more than fifteen hundred feet 
long. On the west bank of the Hooghly are the Botanical 
Gardens in which is the great banyan tree, famous 
throughout India and the world. It has more than two 
hundred and fifty trunks and covers an area nearly one 
thousand feet in circumference Including Howrah and 
the suburbs, Greater Calcutta has a population of nearly 
a million and a quarter, a number which still gives her a 
slight lead over her rival, Bombay. 

For all her growth and prosperity, I do not wonder, 
however, that Calcutta is one of the chief centres of the 
unrest of India. There are few places where differences of 


1 3 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


conditions are more pronounced. The natives of India 
are among the poorest peoples on earth, and Hindustan 
has millions who always go to bed hungry. In the slums 
of this city are people who count their morsels to see 
whether they will have enough to keep body and soul to¬ 
gether for another day. At the same time Calcutta has 
its fashionable residential quarters, where money flows 
like the Ganges and a single family may spend a fortune 
in one season. 

The fashionable district centres around the Maidan, a 
park that furnishes the principal breathing space of the 
over-crowded city. It is nearly two miles long, three 
quarters of a mile wide at the north, and a mile and a 
quarter at the south end. At the north is the palace of the 
governor of the province mansion as snowy as 

newly slaked lime, and not far from the southern extremity 
is Belvedere House, the home formerly occupied by the 
governor and now used by the Viceroy on his annual visit 
to Calcutta. Both are surrounded by beautiful gardens. 

The Maidan is bordered with club-houses and mansions. 
Its two-mile race course is one of the best in the Orient 
and the Christmas meet at which the King-Emperor’s 
Cup and the Viceroy’s Cup are prizes, is the great social 
event of the season. 

In the evenings the wealthy drive about in handsome 
turnouts, and the Viceroy and his lady may sometimes be 
seen in their motor. The fashionable parade includes also 
other officials and rich rajahs, as well as Parsees, and many 
Eurasians, or Anglo-Indians, as these children of English 
fathers and Indian mothers prefer to be called. Every 
one has his chauffeur. In India few car owners drive 
their own automobiles, for the wages of chauffeurs are low 
114 



Government House at Calcutta stands in extensive grounds, entered 
through arched gateways. Here the governor of Bengal lives in great 
state, partly for his own comfort, and partly to impress the natives with 
British power and magnificence. 


















Poverty is the curse of Hindustan, where one meets beggars at every 
turn. In the slums of Calcutta thousands live in hovels or are homeless, 
and count each day’s morsels to see whether they will have enough to 
keep body and soul together. 




CALCUTTA 


and, besides, it is not considered exactly correct thus to 
serve one's self. Even when a man does drive his own 
car there is usually a chauffeur beside him. Most of 
the drivers are Mohammedans or Sikhs from the Punjab. 
Occasionally you see one of them in the native turban and 
gown, though more often they are in conventional uniforms 
of khaki or blue, with visored caps. The Viceroy and 
some of the higher officials always have their attendants 
dressed in uniforms of bright red serge, trimmed with 
gold lace and embroidered with coronets, initials, and 
other insignia. The servants of the Indian rajahs are 
gorgeous with cloth of gold on costumes and in turbans. 
Many of the cars one sees on the Maidan are of the big, 
expensive makes, and go like the wind. It is no wonder 
that the poor, hungry native, whose lean shanks must 
twinkle to get him safely out of the way, is furious when 
he contrasts his lot with that of the men in the automo¬ 
biles. 

He feels no better when he compares his hovel to the 
mansions on the Maidan and the big government build¬ 
ings where the British rule in state. The governor’s 
mansion is of about the same age as the White House at 
Washington, but it is far more magnificent and its sur¬ 
roundings are much more impressive. West of it is the 
town hall, a Doric building finished in 1813, and near that 
are the magnificent buildings of the high courts. Another 
fine structure is the post office, which faces the lake in 
Dalhousie Square. I went through it to-day, and as I 
came out I stopped at the corner and read on a tablet the 
following inscription: 

The marble pavement below this spot was placed here by Lord 
Curzon, Viceroy and Governor-General of India, in 1901, to mark the 

115 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


site of the prison in Old Fort William, known as the Black Hole, 
in which 146 British inhabitants of Calcutta were confined on the 
night of the 20th June, 1756, and from which only 23 came out 
alive. 

A paving of black marble exactly defines the dimensions 
of the prison and near it is an obelisk erected by one of the 
survivors. 

The tragedy of the Black Hole was one of the most 
terrible incidents of the unrest of India in the days of the 
East India Company. The native nabob of Bengal had 
seized the city and most of the British had fled down the 
river. Those that were left soon surrendered to the native 
prince, who ordered their incarceration, ate a huge meal, 
and then went to bed. The one hundred and forty-six 
prisoners were driven at the point of the sword into a dun¬ 
geon twenty feet square. It was in the heat of the trop¬ 
ical summer, and the airholes were small. In a short 
time they gasped for breath. They cried for mercy and 
tried to break down the door. They offered bribes to 
their guards, but they were told that the nabob was 
asleep, and he would be angry if he should be disturbed. 
The dying then fought for places at the windows, and 
raved and prayed and swore, while their jailers held lights 
at the bars and laughed. When the day broke the nabob, 
having wakened from his slumbers, commanded that the 
door be opened. All but twenty-three of the sufferers 
were dead, and the living were so far gone that they were 
barely able to stagger from the charnel house. 

That tragedy is still remembered with horror. And yet 
how closely the ridiculous tramples upon the heels of the 
tragic! Not so long ago a traveller was talking with the 
Viceroy about the sights of Calcutta, and when His Excel- 
116 


CALCUTTA 

lency asked him if he had seen the famous Black Hole, he 
replied: 

“Indeed, I have. I am living in it. It is Room 105 
at the Grand Hotel.” 

1 can sympathize with that visitor, for I live in the same 
hotel. It is said to be one of the best in town, but it has 
numerous black holes. Just now it is so crowded that it is 
almost impossible to secure rooms and I got in only by 
cabling in advance from Rangoon. There are several 
big hotels in Calcutta, rambling three-story buildings that 
cover acres and have all sorts of inconveniences. The door 
of my room, for instance, is fastened with a padlock which 
snaps with a spring. There is only one key and when I 
left this afternoon it remained inside the room. I could 
not get in until I reported to the manager, and to open the 
door the servants had to climb up the walls and in through 
the window. There is an electric bell in my room, but now 
I know better than to ring it, for the hotels in India, even 
the best of them, furnish no bell-boy service. Once when 
I was new to travel in Hindustan, I rang and rang 
a similar push button, but got no response. Finally I 
propped my umbrella against it and left it there for a full 
hour, with the same result. 

In India no one who knows what is good for him travels 
without his own body, or personal, servant. In fact, it 
is almost impossible for an Englishman or an American to 
get along without one. The “boy” acts as interpreter, 
sees to hiring and paying for cabs and taxis, and waits 
upon you on the trains and at your hotels. In many 
places, if you have no servant, you will get nothing to eat, 
your bed goes unmade, your boots go unblacked, and your 
life is generally uncomfortable. 

117 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


The moment our ship came to anchor at Calcutta a score 
of would-be servants rushed aboard and attached them¬ 
selves to the passengers. Two picked me as their prey, 
each determined to outdo the other. Supposing them to 
belong to the Grand Hotel, I handed over my bags. 
As soon as I got to my room each claimed that he had 
brought my baggage, and that this service established 
him as “my boy.” Both offered sheaves of letters as 
references, and both seemed equally good. One was a 
straight, dark Hindu of thirty, and the other a Mohamme¬ 
dan of forty or so. The Hindu's name was Nund Lai, 
while the follower of the Prophet called himself Wali 
Mohammed. I took a day to decide between them, 
during which time each dogged my footsteps. I could 
not ask for anything but both jumped to get it, and when 
I attempted to slip out to inquire about them, 1 found 
both on guard, ready to follow me. If I asked the hours of 
meals, the two answered in concert, and if I wanted hot 
water both started on the dead run to get it. Indeed, I 
was in much the same position as the man adopted by a 
dog, except that 1 had been adopted by two dogs, and 
both stuck. I settled the matter by paying Nund Lai a 
dollar, and letting him go, and appointing Wali Moham¬ 
med my valet. He costs me only about thirty cents a 
day and feeds himself. 

While 1 was waiting to decide between the two, I locked 
up their letters of recommendation in my trunk. It is 
possible to hire such letters in the bazaars, and if they are 
not genuine the servant who has offered them to you will 
protest, as he is obliged to return them to the rightful 
owner. If they are genuine your “boy” is not apt to rob 
you and leave, so long as you have his letters in safe keep- 
118 



In her population of three hundred and nineteen millions India runs the 
whole gamut of the social scale, from the culture of a Gandhi or a Tagore 
to the barbarism of the hill tribesman who hunts game with the primitive 
weapons of his ancestors. 




So stupendous are the Himalayas that the Alps set down in their val¬ 
leys would be almost lost. This snowblown peak is more than twenty- 
eight thousand feet high and second only to Mount Everest among the 
mountains of the world. 




CALCUTTA 

ing, for it would be difficult for him to secure another job 
without them. 

I am told that I shall find Wali more satisfactory than 
Nund Lai, as the Moslems make better servants. Both 
of my “boys” were barefooted and wore head coverings. 
If either one had appeared before me in shoes or with his 
head unswathed, I should have known that he meant to 
be insolent and should have ordered him off at once. 


CHAPTER XIV 


THE VICEROY AND HIS JOB 

T HE gay season in Calcutta is drawing to a close. 
The Viceroy’s annual visit to the city is almost 
over and I should think he would be glad. 
From his arrival at Christmas until his return six 
weeks later to Delhi, his time is filled with parties and 
state functions. I understand that he averages three a 
day. The social machinery of the viceregal court of 
India is far more elaborate than that at the White House, 
and, comparatively speaking, the Viceroy is a more 
exalted personage than our President. Only people of 
definite social standing are invited to the Viceroy’s yearly 
levee, which is the occasion of all kinds of wire-pullings 
and, I daresay, hair-pullings, too, though only men attend. 
Once you have been presented to His Excellency you are 
on the official list and may be considered to have arrived 
socially. At the levees the guests are mostly Europeans, 
representatives of the important business interests, large 
land-owners, higher government officials, and such native 
princes or noblemen as happen to be in town. 

The uniforms and costumes worn at the viceregal func¬ 
tions are gorgeous. I can think of no other social gather¬ 
ing in which the men outshine the women. The latter are 
attired in the conventional evening gowns, but the men 
make a high potentate of one of our secret orders in 
full regalia look almost drab. The civil officials wear 


120 


THE VICEROY AND HIS JOB 

blue uniforms of various shades, elaborately embroidered 
with gold thread and costing from one to two thou¬ 
sand dollars, depending on the rank of the official and 
the amount of gold it demands. The officers of the 
different British regiments stationed in India wear their 
dress uniforms, many of which are of white richly trimmed 
in other colours and set off by gold epaulettes. Gold 
lace is lavishly employed and there is a considerable use 
of fur, which I should think would be rather uncomfor¬ 
table in this hot climate. Add to the other apparel 
the cloth-of-gold turbans, the jewelled swords, the em¬ 
broidered silks, and the splendid jewellery worn by the 
native princes, and you have a scene unequalled for 
brilliancy in any of the courts of Europe. 

The Viceroy has more power than King George V, by 
whom he is nominally appointed, and he rules three 
fourths as many people as there are in all Europe. He 
lives in as much splendour as any European monarch, 
maintaining a large establishment and going about in state. 
Whenever he appears at an indoor function, such as a re¬ 
ception or levee, he is preceded by six of his personal aides 
clad in sky-blue uniforms embroidered with gold thread. 
In processions he is driven in a splendid carriage and 
escorted by a troop of cavalry. The soldiers ride magni¬ 
ficent horses, and carry long lances, which flash like silver 
in the strong sunlight. Ordinarily when the Viceroy 
drives out it is in a Rolls-Royce attended by servants in 
red liveries adorned with his initials and coronet in gold 
embroidery. 

When one goes to the White House he may call at the 
Executive Offices, send in his card, and possibly see the 
President within a few moments. All who wish to pay 


12 I 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


their respects to the Viceroy of India must first announce 
themselves by writing their names in the visitors’ book. 
This is much like a hotel register. There are spaces for your 
name, your profession, the date of your arrival, and the 
time of your leaving Calcutta. It is kept in a booth near 
one of the gates of the viceregal mansion and is accessible 
to all. The list of names so subscribed is taken in to His 
Excellency from day to day, and, at his direction, the 
aide-de-camp sends out notes of appointment to such 
persons as the Viceroy is willing to see. The invitations 
for the dinners, balls, receptions, and other events given by 
the court are made up from this list. 

Scarcely less imposing than the state maintained by the 
Viceroy is that of the Governor of Bengal, who lives in the 
big palace at the north end of the Maidan. When I was 
first in India this was the home of the Viceroy, as it con¬ 
tinued to be until 1912, when the capital of the country 
was transferred from Calcutta to Delhi. After that the 
governor of the province moved out of Belvedere House 
and into Government House, and now when the Viceroy 
comes to Calcutta he stays at Belvedere. 

Government House looks not unlike the White House, 
save that it is more beautiful and twice as large. It 
stands in six acres of grounds not far from the Hooghly 
River, with public buildings at the side and back. The 
entrance is more imposing than that of the home of our 
President. When I called there the other afternoon I 
passed through gates upheld by massive pillars connected 
by arches, upon which crouched gigantic white stone 
lions. On each side of the gates were dark-bearded Indian 
soldiers in uniforms of bright red, with blue turbans as big 
as half-bushel measures. They carried rifles and swords 


122 


THE VICEROY AND HIS JOB 

and presented arms as I rode through. At the end of the 
drive were dusky Sikhs in red, and at the entrance I was 
met by servants dressed in the brightest of scarlet, also 
wearing blue turbans. They had ivory-handled dirks in 
their belts and looked both stately and fierce. On each 
side of the front door were more soldiers, with flags in their 
hands. Like those at the gates, they were six-footers and 
their turbans made them seem taller. They stood like 
statues, looking neither to the right nor to the left. 

Entering the front door, which opens out on a wide 
portico upheld by Grecian columns, I came into the audi¬ 
ence, or throne room. This is an immense hall with 
another great room extending from it at the centre. The 
ceilings of both are, I judge, about twenty-five feet high 
and are supported by columns of imitation marble with 
gilded capitals. The floor of the throne room is of dark 
polished stone. That in the dining room where I lunched 
is of veined white marble. 

The throne room is as imposing as the East Room at 
the White House, and it impresses me more than any 
audience chamber I have ever seen in the palaces of 
Europe. At one side of it is a raised dais where the 
Governor and his wife stand at their receptions. This 
dais is covered with a cloth of gold and upon it is the solid 
silver viceregal throne which will, I daresay, be moved 
either to Belvedere or to Delhi. In this room also is the 
throne captured from Tipu Sultan, the ruler of Mysore, 
who gave the British so much trouble at the close of the 
eighteenth century. 

After luncheon I went with a member of His Excel¬ 
lency’s staff to look at other parts of the palace. The 
building, which cost about seven hundred and fifty thou- 
123 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


sand dollars, was copied after Kedlestone Hall in Derby¬ 
shire. Above the throne hall is a ballroom with walls of 
brocade and tapestry and floors of teak wood so brightly 
polished that you can see yourself in them. The whole 
building is magnificently furnished and is managed by an 
official with a huge retinue of servants to help him. One 
reason why both the Viceroy and the Governor live in such 
style is in order to make an impression upon the natives, 
who judge things a good deal by show. 

I should think that governing India was about the big¬ 
gest of all the big propositions that Great Britain has on 
her hands. The country appalls me, it is so huge, so 
varied, and, withal, so strange. If you could lift it up 
and lay it upon North America with its westernmost 
tip at Seattle, the edge of Burma would extend beyond 
the parallel of Montreal, the state of Kashmir would reach 
'way up into Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and the apex of 
the country would be down in southeastern Texas. The 
total area is in round numbers one million eight hundred 
thousand square miles, or almost exactly half that of 
Europe. 

India is a land of contrasts and extremes. It has great 
deserts and mighty rivers, soils that have been cultivated 
since the dawn of history, and wastes that the plough has 
never turned. The summits of the Himalayas on the 
north are covered with perpetual snows, and the icy'wastes 
about Mount Everest are colder than the frozen depths of 
the Buddhist hell. The plains below are lands of the 
tropics, and some parts are as hot as the burning deserts of 
Australia. In northern India the temperature sometimes 
rises to 126 degrees in the shade. 

Hindustan is at once the wettest and the driest land 


124 


THE VICEROY AND HIS JOB 

upon earth. At Multan in the Punjab the annual rain¬ 
fall totals four inches or less, while Karachi in Sind has 
about five inches in the year, practically all of which 
comes down at the beginning of the summer rains in that 
region. At the other extreme is Cherrapunji, in Bengal, 
which is said to be the wettest place in the world. Here 
the average rainfall is four hundred and fifty-eight inches, or 
more than ten times that of New York, while an unusually 
wet season may mean ten or fifteen feet more than normal. 
In the record year of 1861, nine hundred and five inches fell 
at Cherrapunji, of which three hundred and sixty-six inches 
poured down in the month of July. 

Socially speaking, India is a land of various races and 
religions, numerous languages, and striking differences. 
Anywhere from a hundred and thirty to two hundred dis¬ 
tinct languages are spoken, not to mention the dialects. 
It is a saying of the country that its language changes 
every ten miles. Some put the number of races at forty- 
five, though others say there are really but four or five 
ethnological groups. Only about six per cent, of the 
people can read and write, and but half of one per cent, 
can use English effectively. There are some two thousand 
castes, each separated from the others by the insurmount¬ 
able barriers of custom. 

The people are also divided along religious lines. In the 
total population of 319,000,000 there are, in round num¬ 
bers, 217,000,000 Hindus; 69,000,000 Mohammedans; 
11,500,000 Buddhist (mostly in Burma); 5,000,000 Chris¬ 
tians; 3,250,000 Sikhs; and 10,000,000 Animists. 

In the north of India near relatives may not marry; in 
the south marriage of close kindred is encouraged. In 
some parts the women move about freely; in others they 
125 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


are secluded and restricted. In some sections wheat is the 
staple food; in others, rice; in still others, the people live 
mostly on millets of various kinds. At one end of the 
social scale are the landholding and professional classes, 
many of whom are educated and cultured; at the other 
are primitive tribes such as the head-hunting Nagas of 
Assam and the leaf-clad savages of the southern hills 
who live on vermin and jungle products. 

India is the home of one fifth of the human race. With 
a little more than half as much land, it has three times as 
many people as the United States. Although the popula¬ 
tion has an average density of one hundred and seventy- 
five persons to the square mile, as compared with our 
thirty-five, it is distributed with great irregularity. In 
the northwest the semi-arid state of Jaisalmer has only 
five people to the square mile, while Baluchistan has even 
fewer. On the other hand, there are two small areas in 
the fertile valley of the Ganges where the population is 
upwards of eighteen hundred to the square mile, probably 
the highest density in the world for any region outside of 
cities. 

The country has almost as many towns and villages as 
there are people in St. Louis, and it has large cities the 
names of which we scarcely know. Greater Calcutta, in¬ 
cluding the suburbs and near-by towns, is almost as big as 
Philadelphia. Bombay is about as large as Detroit, and 
Madras equals San Francisco in size. 

While we are likely to think of all India as uniformly 
under British rule, the Indian Empire is divided into 
British India and the native states. The former em¬ 
braces 1,093,074 square miles, or somewhat more than 
sixty per cent, of the area of the Indian Empire, and con- 
126 



At St. Paul’s in Darjeeling the sons of Europeans can get a high school 
education under the auspices of the English church. Darjeeling is one 
of the chief retreats for the British from the fierce heat of the lowlands. 







In the Himalayas one sometimes runs across roadside theatrical 
troupes, who entertain the small crowds they attract along the way and 
take up a collection afterwards. The performers are usually natives of 
Tibet. 




THE VICEROY AND HIS JOB 

tains a little above seventy-serven per cent, of the popula¬ 
tion. We have forty-eight states in our Union, but there 
are nearly seven hundred of the native states in India. 
They range in size from tiny hill states no bigger than a 
Dakota farm, to Hyderabad, which is as big as Italy and 
has a population of thirteen millions. Theoretically, the 
native rulers of these states are absolute despots within 
their own territories, but the British control all foreign 
affairs and the relations between the states. Actually, 
too, the British exercise a restraining influence on the na¬ 
tive rulers in their management of domestic matters. 

For purposes of administration, there are fifteen divi¬ 
sions in British India. The nine most important are the 
provinces of Bombay, Bengal, the United Provinces of 
Agra and Oudh, the Punjab, Burma, Assam, Bihar and 
Orissa, the Central Provinces and Berar, and Madras. 
Each of these has its own governor and local administra¬ 
tion. The supreme executive authority is vested in the 
Viceroy, or Governor-General. 

As a concession to the agitation for home rule, India now 
has its own representative legislature, which was formally 
opened for its first session on February 9, 1921. It con¬ 
sists of the Governor-General and two chambers—the 
Council of State and the Legislative Assembly. All 
except forty-one of the one hundred and forty-four mem¬ 
bers of the Assembly are elected. With certain restric¬ 
tions, the Legislature has power to make laws for all per¬ 
sons in British India and for all British subjects within the 
native states. The administration is divided among eleven 
government departments. The present idea of the 
British appears to be gradually to put more and more 
power into the hands of the Indians themselves, so that 
127 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


finally their country may attain to dominion status like 
that of Canada or New Zealand. 

For years one great bone of contention between British 
and Indians has been the question of the civil servants of 
the government. The Indian Civil Service includes the 
collectors, commissioners, and higher local administrative 
officials in the provinces as well as the higher departmental 
officials who conduct the secretariats in the various de¬ 
partments of the government of India and of the provinces. 
The members of this service really direct the civil and 
judicial administration of India, and have well been 
called by Lloyd George “the steel frame” of the Indian 
government. They are also sometimes called the “un¬ 
crowned kings of the East.” 

The great majority of all the officials and government 
employees are Indians, but the higher positions are largely 
filled by Britishers. The Indians complain that some of 
the best places are given to English born and bred young 
men, who come out without any understanding of India, 
its peoples, or its problems, remain for a term of years, and 
then go back “Home.” The British reply that there are 
only some fifteen hundred British administrators in India, 
and that many of the higher positions are now open 
to Indians. They maintain that the trouble with the 
native official is that, no matter how well educated 
and intellectual he may be, he does not know how to 
take responsibility or act on his own initiative in an 
emergency. And so the matter stands, a source of much 
bad feeling. 

Since I have been in Calcutta I have talked with some 
of the highest and most thoughtful of the British officials 
about the all-pervading unrest. When I questioned one 
128 


THE VICEROY AND HIS JOB 

of these men on the changing conditions in India, he re¬ 
plied : 

“Yes, India is changing. The people are different now 
from what they were even five years ago, and policies 
that the state has successfully used in the past are no 
longer adequate or suitable. One of our great troubles 
is making our people at home understand the situation 
here. When some official who left here twenty or thirty 
years ago says a certain policy worked well in his day, and 
that it ought to work well now, they are apt to consider 
that sufficient reason for adopting it. They appear to 
think that a man who served India ten years ago is com¬ 
petent to suggest and advise as to to-day. This is not the 
case. We have a new India and a new people. We have 
developed a class of educated natives who are thinking for 
themselves. In the past our administration was practi¬ 
cally autocratic. To-day we are wisely adopting concilia¬ 
tory methods. We shall have to use more diplomacy in 
our dealings with the Indians and give them a greater 
share in the administration. The changes already brought 
about are the natural outgrowth of movements we our¬ 
selves started, and I think they are changes for the better.” 

“ But what would be the result if you should leave India? 
Suppose British rule should entirely cease?” 

“I don't think there is any possibility, or at least any 
probability, of the British withdrawing from India,” re¬ 
plied the official. “We are bound to hold our place here 
as a matter of national duty, not only to ourselves, but to 
the Indians and to the rest of the world. If we should 
leave, the result would be chaos, and some other power 
would have to rush in to stop the carnage that would 
ensue. 

129 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


“One cannot imagine the conditions that would obtain 
were we to let go,” he continued. “There would be wars 
of religion, wars of caste, and wars arising out of long-time 
personal grievances. The Nepalese would rush down 
upon the Bengalese and massacre them; the Mohamme¬ 
dans and Hindus would leap at each others’ throats, and 
the native rajahs of certain localities would wage war upon 
one another. The result would be anarchy, and the tear¬ 
ing down of both the political and economic structure of 
the country.” 

Another man, well informed on Indian affairs, has told 
me that when he was making a trip through Nepal, his na¬ 
tive escorts were constantly sharpening their long knives. 
When he asked why, they replied: “We hear the British 
are going to leave India and we are sharpening our knives 
because when they do we are going down to rip up the 
stomachs of those cowardly Bengalis.” 

“ Do you think that the new policy you have instituted, 
giving the natives a larger representation in the govern¬ 
ment, will work?” I asked my British friend. 

“Most certainly yes,” was his answer. “The principle 
of selection adopted for the assemblies, both national and 
provincial, means that we shall have about the best of the 
natives in the councils. The bulk of the Indian represent¬ 
atives are and always will be men of reputation and in¬ 
fluence among their own people, and men whose property 
interests will naturally make them conservative. These 
men want peace and good government, and they will, I 
think, be the last to advocate anything that would bring 
about a violent revolution. There are many Indians of 
ability, many patriots anxious to do all they can for their 
country and people. The number of offices in the hands 


30 


THE VICEROY AND HIS JOB 

of the natives increases from year to year, until now 
comparatively few British subjects are employed by 
the government. All the small places are held by the 
natives, as well as many of those carrying fairly good sal¬ 
aries.” 

Others, however, are not quite so optimistic as this 
official, and the unrest in India is causing grave concern 
both here and in England. But I shall write more of this 
later on. 


CHAPTER XV 


ON THE ROOF OF THE GLOBE 

H ERE at Darjeeling I am in the attic of Asia, 
under the very eaves of the roof of the world. 
About me rise the highest of the Himalaya 
Mountains, their silvery crowns gleaming like 
diamonds in the brilliant sun. To the north and west 1 
can look for miles over bare granite summits sharply out¬ 
lined against a jagged wall of perpetual snow. Here the 
mountains seem to touch the heavens, there they pierce the 
opalescent clouds, and farther on they stand out in shafts 
of silver. That mighty mass at the north is Kinchinjanga, 
more than five miles high, and this morning I stood on 
Tiger Hill and saw the sun gild the summit of Mount 
Everest, which is nearly six miles above the level of the 
sea. From my vantage ground I could count a half-dozen 
peaks, any one of which is higher than the loftiest point of 
the North American continent and several of which reach 
above the height of any other part of the globe. Mount 
Everest measures 29,002 feet, Kinchinjanga, 28,156, 
Jannu, 25,304, and Kabru, 24,015. 

Of all the great heights I find the Himalayas the most 
difficult to describe. It is impossible to comprehend their 
immensity. They are so vast that if you could scatter the 
other mountains of the world through them the size of the 
chain would hardly be affected at all. You could drop the 
Alps into their valleys, and from a few miles away the 
132 


ON THE ROOF OF THE GLOBE 


addition would not be noticeable. If you should ascend 
Mont Blanc and then go straight upward in an airplane 
for more than two miles you would not attain the altitude 
of Kinchinjanga, which is nearly a mile and a half higher 
than Mount McKinley, the giant of Alaska. Mount 
Everest is more than double the height of Fujiyama, the 
sacred mountain of Japan. You could put another Pike's 
Peak on the top of our big mountain near Denver and 
the summit of the mass would not reach as high as Everest. 

As for glaciers, those of the Himalayas are far larger 
than the ice rivers of the Alps. They surpass in size the 
glaciers of New Zealand, as well as those of Alaska. 
There are glaciers here from thirty to sixty miles long. 
One in particular is thirty-three miles in length and is 
flanked by two giant peaks, each more than five miles in 
height. Yet, though the grandeur of the Himalayas is 
oppressive and their immensity beyond human conception, 
they are not the most beautiful of the world's mountains. 
In point of form and symmetry the finest peaks on earth 
are: Fujiyama, in eastern Japan; Mount Cook, in northern 
New Zealand; Mount Mayon, the chief volcano of south¬ 
ern Luzon, and our own Mount Rainier, or Tacoma, on 
the shores of Puget Sound. 

The Himalaya system might be called the father of 
India, for it is largely responsible for the fact that the 
peninsula is able to support such a big population. These 
mountains extend like a mighty wall across the north of 
Hindustan, shutting it off from the rest of Asia. Against 
this high, cold wall blow the warm winds of the summer 
monsoon loaded with moisture from the Indian Ocean. 
As they strike it the moisture condenses and falls in floods, 
watering the plains below. 


133 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


The moist winds keep the mountain tops enveloped 
in clouds, which add greatly to the beauty of the scene. 
The Himalayas have a thousand clouds where the Alps 
have one, and in my mountain rides 1 have enjoyed the 
sight of the cloud masses chasing each other over the hills. 
They crawl up the sides of the valleys, they climb to one’s 
feet and wrap themselves around one. For ten minutes 
the mist may be so thick that a person can hardly see the 
ears of the horse he is riding; then suddenly all is clear. 
A cloud has gone by, floating up toward the snows. This 
morning in my six-mile ride from Darjeeling to Tiger Hill 
I had clouds above and below me. I could see the masses 
of vapour nestling softly in the hollows as though taking a 
siesta. As the sun came up it tinged them with fire and 
spotted the mountains with gold. 

I reached Darjeeling from Calcutta by rail, leaving the 
hot city about four o’clock in the afternoon. We rode 
out on the plains of the Ganges, crossed that river by a 
ferry, and then came on a sleeper to the foot of the moun¬ 
tains, where we changed cars. The way up was all lights 
and shadows. Now the sun shone and now the rain came 
down in torrents. We soon had clouds all about us, and 
farther up often lost sight of the engine in the mist shroud¬ 
ing the train. 

In this railroad journey of twenty-one hours I came 
through the torrid and into the temperate zone. Just 
after leaving Calcutta we rode through patches of rice 
and bananas, into a jungle of bamboos, banyans, and other 
tropical growth. The foothills also are clad in such 
trees, and the first ranges, reaching a mile and a half above 
the plain, have magnificent forests bedded in mosses and 
ferns. The limbs of the trees are loaded with orchids 


134 



On Sunday, the market day, the bazaar at Darjeeling is thronged 
with traders from the Himalayan slopes and labourers from the tea 
plantations. The shouting of the bargainers may be heard from afar. 






From the foot of the mountains a toy train on a narrow-gauge track 
makes the climb through forests and clouds to Darjeeling, perched up 
on the Himalayan slopes seven thousand feet above Calcutta. 





ON THE ROOF OF THE GLOBE 


and here and there are tree ferns with trunks as thick as a 
telegraph pole and almost as tall. The fern leaves come 
out from the top like those of a palm. As we went higher 
I noticed that the colour of the moss on the trees changed 
from green to light gray; it hung from the branches in 
clusters not unlike the Spanish moss of Georgia and 
Florida, and the green appeared to be dusted with silver. 
Higher still there were hardwoods much like those of our 
American mountains; there were roses in bloom and tea 
plantations climbed the hills. 

I shall never forget that railroad. It made me think of 
the toys of my boyhood. The track is a two-foot gauge, 
the engine is about ten feet in length, and the cars are 
pygmies in comparison with our American coaches. The 
track is a series of corkscrew curves, zigzags, and Y’s. The 
train twists about like a snake and the cars are so small 
that they look like the links of a chain, the ends of which 
seem now and then to touch. There are a dozen horseshoe 
curves in every mile, and the train makes figure 8’s several 
times in its drunken climb up the slopes. As we rode up we 
could see the track rising from terrace to terrace on the 
mountainside. Once we shot under a hill and came out 
into a loop, and then crossed over our own trail by a 
bridge. The Y system is frequently used, and there are 
double Y’s to elevate the train from one level to another. 

From the open cars I looked down on green-clad preci¬ 
pices a thousand feet deep and up at the towering heights 
far above us. Every little while we came to a village. 
When the train stopped to get coal, it seemed as if it were 
pausing to catch its breath before continuing the slow 
ascent. 

Here in Darjeeling I am seven thousand feet above sea- 
135 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 

level. The temperature does not exceed eighty degrees 
in summer or go much below freezing in winter, so it is a 
favourite resort for the British of the Bengal lowlands. 
It has excellent hotels, fine residences, and numerous 
furnished villas which are let out for the season. There 
are also hospitals and sanitariums. Another attraction 
is the military camp situated outside the town. Among 
the finest homes in the place is that of the governor of 
Bengal, who lives here about four months every year. 

One of the sights of Darjeeling is the bazaar patronized 
by the natives from miles around. On Sunday, the mar¬ 
ket day, the town is thronged with Himalayans. Traders 
come here from Tibet, there are Nepalese and Bhutanis, 
natives from Sikkim and the slopes of Mount Everest, to 
say nothing of the labourers from the two hundred tea 
plantations near by. 

The women are especially interesting. Perhaps you 
have heard of the strength of the girls of Tibet, and how 
the wife bosses the household, even though she may have 
three or four husbands. From what I have seen here I 
judge these stories are true. These Himalayan girls could 
handle the average American husband with one hand tied 
behind them. I found a score of them at the station when 
I arrived and hired one to carry my trunk to the hotel. 
The way was steep, but she agreed to take it up the hill on 
her back for thirty-three cents, and she did. A fellow 
traveller has told me that another girl walked so fast tak¬ 
ing his two-hundred-and-twenty-five-pound trunk up the 
slope that, although he was carrying nothing at all, he 
could not keep up with her. 

The women are both the dray horses and road carts of 
Darjeeling. They bring the dirt for repairing the streets, 

136 


ON THE ROOF OF THE GLOBE 


digging it out of the hills with pick-axes and shovelling it 
into great baskets which they carry on their backs with the 
aid of straps about their foreheads. Each basket holds 
two or three bushels, and, well filled, will weigh more 
than one hundred pounds. With their mighty shoulders, 
strong bodies, and great calves and ankles I verily believe 
these women could move mountains. 

The native mountain girls load themselves with jew¬ 
ellery. The poorest of them have earrings and anklets of 
silver, and the beauty who took my trunk to the hotel was 
so decorated with chains, coins, and other ornaments that 
she jingled as she tramped up the hill. I see women with 
strings of silver coins as big as fifty-cent pieces about their 
necks and covering their breasts, and there are many wear¬ 
ing gold anklets and leglets, bracelets and earrings. They 
wear also ornaments of glass and turquoise. The tur¬ 
quoise, which is one of the common semi-precious stones of 
the Himalayas, is found in Tibet and brought over the 
mountains for sale. It is sometimes made into earrings 
four or five inches long and so heavy that they pull down 
the ear lobes. Many of the women wear circlets of coral, 
amber, or jade about their heads and have belts with 
gold or silver clasps. Among the tribes near Darjeeling 
are the Lepchas and Bhutanis. The Lepcha women wear 
their hair in braids down their backs, and the Bhutanis 
have balls of coral and turquoise as big as marbles on 
strings round their heads. 

The Tibetan tribesmen look fierce and carry curved 
knives in their belts. I understand that when drunk they 
sometimes carve up one another, but that neither drunk 
nor sober do they bully their wives. The women, who 
are in the minority, often marry several husbands each. 

137 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


Girl babies are not welcomed in these regions where food is 
scarce, and many female babies are given opium with their 
mothers' milk so that they soon die. Every man gets a 
share in a home and a wife, but there are no large 
families for him to support. 

The market of Darjeeling is easily located by the noise 
of people bargaining. Every stand draws a crowd and 
the people shout out their views about the goods and the 
prices. I found a space of several acres filled with traders 
seated on the ground. Elere the women were selling cot¬ 
tage cheese, or smearcase, as we call it out in Ohio. They 
had great crocks of snow-white curds, which they served 
out to their customers in boxes of leaves. Farther on 
were men with chickens and pigs, and at the right was the 
open-air meatshop, with butchers ready to kill a sheep 
upon order and cut off a chop hot from the loin. There 
were many Buddhist priests in the market, some of them 
lamas down from Tibet, and scores of beggars bel¬ 
lowing for alms. I saw also some Tibetans with their 
prayer wheels, with which the faithful can register some¬ 
thing like ten petitions a minute. The wheels are brass 
or copper boxes the size of a pint cup or smaller and 
about twice as deep, with Tibetan characters stamped 
in the metal. Inside each box is a roll of the prayers con¬ 
sidered most effective by these primitive Buddhists. The 
box is pierced by a wire stuck through the centre and 
fastened to a handle about a foot long. With a turn of 
the handle the box rolls round on the wire axis and 
at every revolution the prayers within are supposed 
to go up to Buddha and to wipe away the sins of the 
owner. 

In Tibet there are prayer wheels somewhat like these 

138 


ON THE ROOF OF THE GLOBE 


worked by windmills and water-power; and, I doubt not, 
that since electricity is coming even up into the Hima¬ 
layas the primitive Buddhists will harness the lightning in 
their race toward salvation. 

They remind me of the old story of the American who 
had a beautiful prayer written out for him covering his 
every possible need. He pasted it on the head of his bed 
and every night before jumping in, folded his hands and 
reverently said: “Oh! Lord, them's my sentiments. 
Amen." 

I understand that the trade between India and the 
tribes on the other side of the Himalayas is increasing. 
The various government expeditions into Tibet have 
opened some markets, and a considerable business' is now 
done at Darjeeling. The Tibetans bring down musk, 
skins, tea, salt, and wools, as well as ponies, cattle, and 
sheep. They take back sugar, dried fruits, and cotton 
goods of all kinds, as well as ivory, indigo, madder, and 
liquors. 

So far there is no wagon road between Darjeeling and 
Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. Goods are carried over the 
mountains on the backs of women and men, on ponies, or 
on yaks, shaggy creatures that resemble buffaloes. Yaks 
are the only beasts that thrive on the cold and hardships 
of high Tibet. The sight of a yak always reminds me of 
Oliver Herford’s classic lines, which go something like 
this: 

This is the yak so negligee; 

Her hair looks like a stack of hay. 

She lives so far from everywhere, 

I fear the yak neglects her hair, 

And thinks, “Since there is none to see, 

No matter how unkempt I be.” 


139 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


Most of the caravans come by the Jelap Pass, which is 
less than three miles high, and is open all the year round. 
It is only about five days’ march from Darjeeling and 
going through it one looks upon Tibet, the loftiest country 
in the world. 


140 



Throngs stream across the long floating bridge over the Hooghly River 
connecting Calcutta with Howrah, which has the terminals of three rail¬ 
way systems and many jute and other factories. 






Indian princes and nobles and British jute kings have splendid homes 
in Calcutta’s fashionable section, where money flows like the Ganges. 
The palace of the millionaire, Badra Das, is typical of the wealthy natives’ 
love of display. 








CHAPTER XVI 


TEA FARMS OF THE HIMALAYAS 

A LL around me in the foothills of the Himalayas, 
f\ more than seven thousand feet above the level 
/""% of the sea, are hundreds of tea plantations. 
^ ^ Every year they are sending millions of pounds 

of their product to cheer but not inebriate people in all 
parts of the world. London office boys and clerks as 
well as members of Parliament, smartly gowned wo¬ 
men in New York hotels, boundary riders and miners in 
the lonely places of the Australian bush, men and women 
in Turkey, Arabia, Persia, and other lands, will at some 
time to-day refresh themselves with the beverage brewed 
from the small green leaves grown away off here in the 
shadow of the world’s highest mountains. 

You remember the temperance landlady’s remarks to 
her bibulous boarder: “I will sleep you and eat you, but 
I’ll be blest if I drink you.” India bids fair to drink the 
world, for her black teas have practically monopolized the 
markets of Europe and are widely sold wherever white 
men live. The largest shipments go to Great Britain, 
which is a big distributor of teas to other countries. Some 
are sent to Australia and Canada. Of the ninety-four 
million pounds of tea the United States imports each year, 
twenty million pounds come from India and Ceylon direct, 
and we buy fifteen million pounds more through Great 
Britain. But we still get most of our tea from China and 
141 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


Japan, thirty-six million pounds from the latter country 
and fifteen millions from the former. 

Of all the western nations, the British are the greatest 
tea drinkers. Their consumption amounts to six or 
seven pounds per person every year, where our people 
each drink less than one pound. The Germans and the 
French prefer coffee and wine or beer, sipping tea only 
now and then. The Chinese and the Japanese drink tea 
throughout the day. The Chinese will not drink water 
unless it is boiled, and they even flavour the water with 
tea. The consumption of these two nations is probably 
greater than that of all the rest of the world put together, 
but for lack of statistics no one knows just how much 
it is. 

I have travelled extensively through the tea fields of 
Japan and China and know something about them. The 
methods of cultivation and curing are far different there 
from those of the big plantations of Hindustan. In the 
former countries, though there are some large plantations, 
most of the tea is raised in small patches. The usual tea 
garden of Japan is not much bigger than a city lot and that 
of China is not larger than the average flower plot. In 
China traders go about the tea districts and buy up the 
crops from the small growers. These men sell to other 
traders and one crop may pass through a half-dozen differ¬ 
ent hands before it is shipped to Hankow and put aboard 
one of the big steamers for Europe. 

In India, as in Java, tea is grown on extensive planta¬ 
tions, some of which cover hundreds of acres and require 
thousands of men and women as labourers. They are 
handled in a businesslike fashion, and the huge crops do 
not pass through the hands of so many middlemen as in 
142 



Among the Tibetan tribes about Darjeeling the women, who are in 
the minority, marry several husbands apiece. Thus every man gets 
a share in a home and a wife, but none has a large family to support. 





Tea shrubs are grown on the terraced hills about Darjeeling and all 
along the southern Himalayan slopes. Indian teas have monopolized 
the European market and are competing strongly with those of Japan 
and China in the United States. 










TEA FARMS OF THE HIMALAYAS 


China. The owners have made a science of growing tea, 
and in the last thirty years or so the average yield of the 
Indian plantations has been increased by from three 
hundred to six hundred pounds to the acre. The highest 
yields in India are obtained in Assam, where they run to 
about eight hundred pounds. This figure is not up to the 
yields of Ceylon or Java, in both of which more than one 
thousand pounds have been obtained from an acre. 

At present the tea industry of Hindustan represents an 
investment of more than one hundred million dollars, and 
in the neighbourhood of seven hundred thousand people 
are employed upon the plantations. The area under 
cultivation is steadily increasing and it is said that the 
plant may be raised all along the southern slopes of the 
Himalayas at from three to six or seven thousand feet 
above sea level. 

To do its best the shrub must have a warm, sub-tropical, 
and moist climate and a well-distributed rainfall of not 
less than sixty inches a year. In the Himalayas most of 
the land used is rolling or hilly, and the best soil is a 
reddish, sandy loam with a free subsoil. The seeds are 
first planted in beds. One year later the seedlings are 
set out in rows a few feet apart. They are carefully culti¬ 
vated and trimmed in order to make them grow bushy. 
The soil is often top dressed with woods earth, and chemi¬ 
cal fertilizers are frequently used. Cattle manure is not 
available in India, as the people use that for fuel. After 
the plants are three years old they are ready for the first 
plucking. The leaves are carefully pulled off, a certain 
number being left to keep the plants growing. It takes 
five or six years for a shrub to mature and at the end of 
that time it should produce a pound or more of tea every 


143 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


year. The tea planters of India have worked out a sys¬ 
tem whereby five pickings a year are possible, whereas in 
China only three are made. Many of the trees about 
here are forty years old and there are some in China so 
old that no one knows when they were planted. 

In the plantations I have seen near Darjeeling the plants 
range from four to six feet in height. Some have trunks 
six inches in diameter and others are mere stems. The 
fresh leaves look not unlike those of the willow tree, but 
when crushed they smell like tea. The shrub is a species 
of the camellia. 

I passed through many plantations on my ride up the 
mountains from Calcutta. The bushes rise in terraces up 
the sides of the hills, looking at a distance rather like 
well-trimmed boxwood hedges. Here and there I saw 
gaily dressed women plucking the leaves, their bright cal¬ 
icoes making spots of vivid colour amid the green, and 
their jewellery flashing in the sun. On her back each picker 
had a basket holding about two bushels and kept in place 
by a band around her forehead. 

The planters here are chiefly British, and many of the 
estates are owned by corporations. The managers of these 
properties live in fine bungalows surrounded by lawns and 
gardens. Not a few of them are the second sons of aristo¬ 
cratic families in England. 

The processes of curing tea in India are different from 
those used in Japan and China. In the latter countries 
nearly everything is done by hand and the methods are 
unsanitary in the extreme, though the use of machinery is 
slowly making its way. In China I have seen women and 
girls pressing the moisture out of tea leaves by treading 
them with bare feet. There also the leaves are rolled 


144 


TEA FARMS OF THE HIMALAYAS 


over and over with the hands and fired in red-hot pans 
by half-naked, perspiring workmen. 

In India and in Ceylon the tea isall rolled by machinery. 
Every plantation has its factories, where the leaves are 
withered and rolled between steel plates so carefully ad¬ 
justed that they do not injure the leaves. The drying is 
done by hot blasts and revolving fans, so that the product 
is perfectly clean. It is carefully graded, and while still 
warm it is packed in lead-lined chests for shipment abroad. 
The chests are soldered and made air-tight so that the tea 
cannot absorb moisture and grow mouldy. 

Making the chests in which India tea is packed has 
become a considerable industry, between three and four 
million boxes being required every year. Before the 
World War less than half this number were manufactured 
in India, practically all the rest being imported from 
Great Britain. The material used was Russian birch or 
alder, and when war conditions cut off communications 
between Russia and England, the wood was shipped via 
Vladivostok directly to India. This naturally stimu¬ 
lated the home manufacture of tea chests, and it is hoped 
the industry will develop sufficiently to supply the entire 
Indian demand. The wood used for tea chests must be 
thoroughly dried out, lest the sap corrode the lead lining; 
it must be odourless, for tea absorbs odours readily; and 
it must be seasoned, or the warm tea may warp it. Ex¬ 
periments tried with steel chests have proven them to be 
too expensive for general use. 

While India and Ceylon are selling tea to the rest of the 
world, the people themselves consume comparatively small 
quantities. The Hindus drink almost no tea, and the 
Mohammedans but little. Tea-drinking is somewhat on 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


the increase among the townspeople, but there are mil¬ 
lions in India who have never seen a tea leaf or tested the 
brew. Over in Burma they have a way of pickling the 
leaves of the tea plant and eating them for a relish. The 
leaves are left in boiling water until soft and then rolled 
on mats by hand and rammed into a tube of bamboo, 
which is then stopped up and buried in the ground for a 
time. The leaves are also prepared with a mixture of oil 
and salt, and sometimes with asafoetida. The resulting 
mess smells not unlike Limburger cheese, but it is said to 
be a digestant, and is considered a dainty. It is used 
upon ceremonial occasions. Another method of preparing 
pickled tea is to throw the leaves, after they have been 
steamed and flavoured, into pits of masonry or wells 
lined with planks or bamboo, in which they are pressed 
down with a heavy weight. 

I am told that some of the Himalayan tribes churn tea 
as we churn butter. The leaves are mixed with soda and 
water and put on to boil. When the mixture is quite hot, 
butter and milk are added, and the whole is put into a tea 
churn. After it has been well shaken about it is taken 
out with the foam on it, when it is ready for drinking. 
The Tibetans serve their tea in a somewhat similar man¬ 
ner, using brick tea such as that used by the Russians. 
Most of the brick tea is made in China, and I once vis¬ 
ited a factory in Hankow where one thousand sweating 
coolies were grinding tea leaves to dust and making them 
into little blocks for use in the samovars of the Russians. 
The business suffered a big slump after the Bolshevik 
revolution, but Russia is now buying brick tea from India 
and Ceylon as well as from China. 

The world owes its tea to China, where it has been 
146 


TEA FARMS OF THE HIMALAYAS 


grown for nobody knows how many centuries. According 
to legend it was introduced there by the Emperor Chin- 
nung in 2737 b. c. It was certainly in use there in the 
sixth century a. d., and had grown so common by the 
eighth century that a tax was levied upon it. From 
China tea culture spread to Japan, where the industry is 
at least twelve hundred years old. But no knowledge of 
the beverage seems to have reached Europe until the 
Portuguese began trading with China in 1517. In the 
next century the Dutch established themselves on the 
island of Bantam, learned of tea from the Chinese, and 
introduced into Europe the habit of drinking it. In his 
diary Samuel Pepys, that up-to-date Londoner, writes 
on the 25th of September, 1660: “I did send for a 
cup of tee, a China drink, of which I never had drunk 
before,” so it must have been a novelty in England at 
that time. 

Furthermore, tea then appears to have been considered 
more as a medicine than as a pleasant beverage and 
stimulant. About the time that Pepys had his first 
taste of it, Thomas Garway, the English tea dealer, and 
the founder of a well-known coffee house, issued a broad¬ 
side giving “ An Exact Description of the Growth, Quality, 
and Virtues of the Leaf Tea.” This curious advertisement 
is still preserved at the British Museum. It claims that 
tea helps headache, giddiness, and “obstructions of the 
spleen”; it is “good against lippitude, distillations, and 
cleareth the sight”; it “vanquisheth heavy dreams, 
easeth the brain, and strengtheneth the memory”; it 
“strengthens the inward parts and prevents consump¬ 
tions”; and it is good for “colds, dropsies, and scurvies, 
and expelleth infection.” I should say that some of the 
147 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


writers of patent medicine advertisements must have 
studied Garway’s broadside. 

Up to about one hundred years ago China and Japan 
supplied the world’s tea market. By the eighteenth 
century the business of meeting the British demand was a 
monopoly of the East India Company, which turned its 
attention to cultivating the shrub in its own domain. In 
1820 Sir David Scott, the first commissioner of Assam, 
submitted to the government botanist at Calcutta certain 
leaves, which grew wild on the Assam hills, with the 
statement that they were said to belong to the tea plant. 
The specimen was classified under its proper botanical 
name and there the matter rested, while the officials sent 
to the tea districts of China to procure seed and skilled 
workmen. Some years were lost in experiments with 
different Chinese varieties before at last the wild tea plant 
of the Assam hills was cultivated and India’s tea industry 
got its real start. 

For twenty years India has been the leading tea-export¬ 
ing country, Ceylon comes next, and China is now third, 
though she still produces about half the world’s crop. 
India produces one fifth and Ceylon a bit more than half 
as much. Ceylon’s industry is less than sixty years old, 
for it began after the great blight of 1870 put many of the 
coffee planters out of business and turned their minds to 
tea culture. Both Ceylon and India owe their leadership 
largely to good organization and to well-planned advertis¬ 
ing. In both countries the planters got together and 
agreed to pay a small tax on every pound of tea they ex¬ 
ported. This was collected by the government and 
turned over to the planters, who used the sum realized to 
herald abroad the merits of their teas. 

148 


TEA FARMS OF THE HIMALAYAS 


India and Ceylon are black-tea countries, while China 
and Japan are green-tea countries. The difference be¬ 
tween black and green teas is merely a difference between 
the methods of curing and does not lie in any variation 
in the leaves. The advertising of the Indian and Cey¬ 
lonese planters is largely responsible for the greater 
popularity of black tea in the world’s markets to-day. 
Ceylon has dropped her tea tax, or cess, as it was 
called, but in 1921 India doubled hers, laying an assess¬ 
ment of one twelfth of a cent on every pound exported. 
The receipts from the cess, which come to about half a 
million dollars or more in a year, are divided, a large share 
being spent on publicity in the United States, another 
part going for advertising through the grocery stores of 
France, and another considerable portion being reserved 
for advertising tea in India itself. Largely as a result 
of the propaganda of the Indian Tea Association, con¬ 
sumption of tea in India has more than doubled in the 
last few years. Tea shops have multiplied not only in 
Calcutta, Madras, and other big cities, but also in the 
smaller towns, especially in southern India. 


149 


CHAPTER XVII 


ON THE FRINGE OF INDIA 

EW realize that we have here in India peoples of 
whom the world knows nothing, and regions 
that the foot of white man has never trod.” 



A These were the words of a veteran British 

official in India. He continued : 

“Take the Brahmaputra, that mighty river emptying 
into the Ganges near its mouth. Only comparatively 
recently have we learned anything about its source, and 
to-day there is still a territory along its banks which 
has not yet been explored. The country there is a veri¬ 
table no-man’s land, inhabited by half-naked savages 
who are professional head-hunters and who use poisoned 
arrows. We pay them a subsidy for letting us alone, and 
we have never attempted to conquer them.” 

“ But just where is this territory?” I asked. 

“ It lies near the northern borders of Assam in the foot¬ 
hills of the Himalayas. It is not far from the tea dis¬ 
tricts, and there are tea factories with their electric lights 
and modern machinery upon its very edge. You may 
travel ten miles from such surroundings and reach lo¬ 
calities where your life is not safe for a moment. The 
country is wild and rugged, and the land falls away 
precipitously from an altitude of two miles above sea 
level down to a thousand feet or so. In that region the 
drop of the Brahmaputra is so great that we believe there 


150 



Lying on the northwestern fringe of India is the valley of Kashmir, 
six thousand feet up in the Himalayas and famous for its scenery and its 
handwoven silks and carpets. 





The Banjara tribes are cattle-owning gipsies whose ancestors did a 
carrying trade in salt, opium, and grain from India even into fartherest 
Europe. To-day they gather in small settlements or wander about with 
their cows and buffaloes. 







ON THE FRINGE OF INDIA 


must be big waterfalls there. We may have hidden in 
those jungles a second Niagara or Zambesi Falls.” 

“And you say that the British pay tribute to these 
barbarians? That is an odd policy for a mighty power, 
is it not?” 

“ It is cheaper to pay than to fight,” the official replied. 
“When we took possession of the country these tribesmen 
were periodically raiding the lowland villages. They would 
swoop down from the hills and kill a few people, carrying 
away as much loot as they could. They usually got a cow 
or so, a few goats and chickens, and household effects worth 
comparatively little. When we took possession we called 
the chiefs to a conference and asked them how much 
they made from these annual raids. They told us, and 
together we figured up their thefts for the past few years, 
estimating that they netted on the average about twelve 
hundred and twenty rupees per annum. We thereupon 
proposed that if the tribesmen would let the other natives 
alone we would pay them this much every twelve months. 
They agreed, and thus far have kept their contract. They 
come at the appointed season for the money, and seem 
well satisfied with their four hundred dollars.” 

“But is not that an undignified way of keeping the 
peace?” I asked. 

“Yes, but in this instance it is the best. The only 
other thing we could do would be to send troops into the 
territory. We should have to fight all the time, and 
there would be a continuous loss of money and life. The 
country is a jungle and our men would be shot with 
poisoned arrows from behind the trees. The savages 
could kill many of us without our being able to kill them, 
and the game does not seem to be worth the candle.” 

151 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


Such people are scattered through the forests and 
along the frontiers of India. There are queer tribes of 
Mongols on the borders of Tibet, strange forest dwellers 
on the Nilgiri Hills, and aborigines on the various islands, 
while in Kashmir and Baluchistan are still other peoples 
with customs as different from those of the British as are 
those of the Eskimos from our own. 

One great class, known as jungle people, live in the 
woods and are about as savage as the natives of the 
Kongo. They believe in witches and witch doctors, make 
bloody sacrifices, and engage in wild dances as a part of 
their worship. These people are generally Animists, or 
spirit worshippers, and number about ten millions. Their 
food is principally wild herbs and fruits, and their homes 
are caves or temporary shacks. 

In southern India are the Yanadis, who have round 
huts made of brushwood, and live on jungle fruits and wild 
honey. They are as shy as the Negritos of the Philippines, 
and will run at the sight of a white man. 

Since I have been in India I have met some of the 
officials in charge of the penal settlement on the Anda¬ 
man Islands in the Bay of Bengal. The aborigines, of 
whom there are only some thirteen hundred left, are 
pigmies. They move about from place to place, putting 
up shelters of leaves and brush wherever they camp. 
They wear practically no clothing and are not unlike the 
pigmies of the Congo. Their skins are black, and their 
heads are shaved so as to leave on the top a circular 
patch of frizzly hair as big around as a tea cup. The 
women are the barbers and every wife dresses her hus¬ 
band’s hair. Both women and men are tattooed. As a 
sign of her devotion a widowed Andamanese wears 
<52 


ON THE FRINGE OF INDIA 

the skull of her dead husband on a string about her 
neck. 

I am told that when the British officers first came to 
the Andamans the natives were cannibals, clad chiefly 
in coats of red mud and worshipping an evil spirit which 
spread disease. They believe this world is balanced on 
top of a very tall tree, which at the last day will be 
loosened by an earthquake. When that comes to pass they 
think the living and the dead will change places and that 
the angels and devils will keep shaking the tree and thus 
prevent mankind from going up the bamboo ladder con¬ 
necting it with heaven. They think also that the devil 
dwells in the sea and feeds upon the bodies of those who 
are drowned. So far as I know the Andamanese are the 
only people in existence who have no knowledge of how to 
make a fire. Each family treasures its own flame, which 
is never allowed to go out. 

Some of the strangest of India’s wild peoples live in 
the upper Himalayas, which are spotted with tribes 
whose ancestors took to the mountains before the on¬ 
slaught of the conquering Aryans more than three thou¬ 
sand years ago. There are hill men in Assam who have no 
method of telling distances, but measure the length of a 
journey by the amount of betel-leaf they can chew on the 
way. There are tribesmen that paint their faces like our 
Indians, and many who tattoo and disfigure themselves 
in various ways. 

The Nagas inhabit the country east of the Assam Valley. 
They are Mongols and number in all less than two hundred 
thousand. The largest of their tribes is the Angami, who 
believe they were the first people on earth, and say that 
they sprang from the dew. They call the earth their only 

153 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


master and worship it. They live in villages entered by 
sunken paths and surrounded by stockades of thorn 
bushes and nettles. 

Another of the Naga divisions is known as the Aos. 
These people were once notorious slaveholders, and used 
to sacrifice some of the slaves they captured in war. 
Another is the Sernas, who until recently were head¬ 
hunters and did not scruple to slay their guests. 

I am told that the Nagas have great buildings for the 
bachelors or young men of the tribes, corresponding some¬ 
what to the men’s quarters in New Guinea, and also to 
the young people’s halls among the Masai of Africa. 
The young men’s hall is erected on a platform, and the 
girls’ house is near by. The men sleep in bunks; in the 
girls’ house there are always two or three maidens sleep¬ 
ing together. In addition there is sometimes an old 
woman as chaperon, though I understand that she is often 
half blind and spends but little time on her job. 

I have spoken of the Tibetan women I saw in the Dar¬ 
jeeling bazaars who had each more than one husband. 
Polyandry is still common in the Himalayas from Assam 
to Kashmir, and also among the Todas of the Nilgiri 
Hills. Often where there is a pretty girl in the family, 
the man who falls in love with her pays a fee to her 
parents, and possibly comes into the house as her hus¬ 
band. After a time a second lover may appear, and 
unless the first husband can offer a large sum to secure 
exclusive possession, the newcomer pays his price and 
joins the circle. It appears that it is entirely a question 
of money, and that the man who can afford it may have a 
wife to himself. In such marriages the children are looked 
upon as belonging to the women. 


154 


ON THE FRINGE OF INDIA 


In the Nilgiri Hills, a great plateau more than a mile 
above sea level and not far from Madras, live a hairy 
people, noted for their drunkenness and moral laxity. 
They dwell in huts of bamboo covered with thatch, with 
doorways so low that they have to crawl in and out on all 
fours. They are chiefly herdsmen and drive their long¬ 
horned buffaloes about from place to place to pasture. 
These hillmen worship the moon and the rising sun and they 
have other gods of various kinds. They now and then sacri¬ 
fice calves, with the hope that the cows will give more milk; 
and at funerals they sacrifice buffaloes, believing that the 
souls of the animals will go with the dead up to heaven. 

The Sontals worship the sun and the mountains, and 
the Gonds, who think they are sprung from a certain 
peak of the Himalayas, bury their dead with their feet 
to the north that they may be ready to start home with¬ 
out turning around. 

The whole of northern and western India is really a 
backwoods country. Baluchistan is largely a desert, with 
fertile valleys of date palms over which move caravans of 
camels. Its people are mostly Moslems of Persian de¬ 
scent and do not recognize caste. Not unlike them are 
the Afghans, who live on the outskirts of India and num¬ 
ber about ten million. They claim to be descended from 
one of the lost tribes of Israel. Their territory is said to 
be rich in minerals, but as yet it has not been prospected. 
They are a nation of horsemen, and send hundreds of 
horses down to Delhi and other parts of India each year. 
Afghanistan has a half-dozen or more good-sized cities, 
some of which are great trading centres. It is ruled by 
the Amir, who lives at Kabul, and is on friendly terms 
with the government of IndL. 


155 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 

There are no railroads in Afghanistan, though a large 
caravan trade flows through the Khyber Pass, bringing 
goods from Kabul and Bokhara and Central Asia down 
to Hindustan. In Afghanistan the highways are mostly 
trails for horses and camels, although wagon roads are 
now being made from the chief towns to the Russian, 
Persian, and Indian frontiers. Automobiles go regularly 
from Kabul to Peshawar, from which a railroad line is 
being built through the Khyber Pass. 

Between Afghanistan and India lies a belt of territory 
of varying width extending from the Gomal Pass in the 
south to Kashmir in the north. It is known as the Inde¬ 
pendent Territory and is inhabited by mountain tribes 
whose chief desire is to be left alone. They can put thou¬ 
sands of armed men into the field and, as they are fanatical 
Moslems, are easily stirred up to fight by their religious 
leaders. Their land does not yield enough to support the 
population and so they become caravan traders, enlist in 
the Indian Army or in the Frontier Militia, or follow the 
ancient calling of their forefathers, that of making raids 
upon the more peaceful and wealthy inhabitants of the 
plains below. Thus they cause the British no end of 
trouble. 

On this border are the “Gates to India,” the four main 
passes through the northwestern mountain barrier which 
are always closely guarded. Through them in times past 
came the conquering Aryans, the cohorts of Alexander the 
Great, the hosts of the Tartars, the Moguls, the Persians, 
and the Afghans. Chief of the gates is “that sword-cut 
in the mountains that men call Khyber Pass.” It is a 
narrow defile winding through cliffs of shale and limestone 
from six hundred to a thousand feet high and through it 
156 


ON THE FRINGE OF INDIA 


goes the main highway between Kabul and Hindustan. 
Caravans are permitted to go through only on certain 
days of the week. Then the Khyber Rifles, a special 
force of eighteen hundred mountain tribesmen, guard the 
gate while the convoys of camels, asses, and wild-looking 
men, and women and children file past on their way to 
trade with the people of the plains below. 


157 


CHAPTER XVIII 


THE ASHES OF BUDDHA 

T HIS whole trip has been full of reminders of 
Buddha and the teachings he gave to the world 
six centuries before Christ was born. I found 
Siam and Burma dotted from one end to the 
other with pagodas set up in his honour and alive with 
thousands of yellow-robed monks going about with their 
begging bowls. But although these countries and Ceylon 
are the strongholds of Buddha's faith to-day, India was 
the land of his birth and his mission. 

Siddhartha Gautama, afterward called Buddha, or the 
Enlightened, was the son of the ruler of the Sakya clan 
who lived in southern Nepal, on the slopes of the Hima¬ 
layas, and his boyhood was spent amid the most beauti¬ 
ful scenery and in the shadows of the highest mountains 
on earth. He belonged to the warrior caste and during 
the earlier part of his life he enjoyed such luxury as only 
India knows. He was given every pleasure, and was 
married to a charming princess, who in due time presented 
him with a fine son. During this period he was protected 
from all knowledge of evil, sorrow, and pain, and it was 
not until he was almost twenty-nine years of age that he 
began to realize the troubles of mankind, and decided 
upon his great renunciation. He then gave up his palace, 
cut off his long hair, and putting on the clothes of a beggar 
went forth upon the highways. Six years he spent in 
158 





The thousands of Buddhist pilgrims to the temple at Buddha Gaya 
must pay toll to the Hindu priests who control it. Their devotions ac¬ 
complished, the worshippers ring one of the bells about the shrine to call 
attention to the merit they have won. 



















A great temple now marks the spot at Buddha Gaya where Gautama 
received enlightenment. Behind it is the sacred Bo Tree beneath which 
he sat for six years, fasting, praying, and resisting temptation. 








THE ASHES OF BUDDHA 

wandering about and trying to attain his soul's salvation. 
He practised one religion after another; he fasted and 
prayed; he mortified the flesh in every way, and went 
through struggle after struggle and temptation after 
temptation, until at last, at Buddha Gaya, he received 
enlightenment. 

Buddha Gaya is to the Buddhists the most holy spot 
upon earth. It lies some distance south of the Ganges, 
three hundred and ninety-two miles by rail from Calcutta, 
and is reached by way of Patna, where the great opium 
factories were. As the crow flies it is about one hundred 
and twenty-five miles from Benares. The fig tree under 
which Gautama sat and meditated and received the 
inspiration that made him Buddha, or the “Enlightened 
One," is known as the Bo Tree, or “Tree of Wisdom." 
It was for centuries one of the two most venerated trees 
upon earth. The other was in Ceylon and grew from a 
branch of the original Bo Tree, which was taken to that 
island about 300 b. c. Many devout Buddhists believe 
that the sacred fig tree at Buddha Gaya to-day is the 
same as that beneath which the sage pondered so long 
ago. 

Near the Bo Tree the Buddhists built a temple, which 
is about thirteen hundred years old. It is in the form of 
a pyramid of nine stories, embellished with niches. Like 
the holy places of Jerusalem, which were for centuries in 
the hands of the Moslem Turks, this Buddhist temple is 
in the possession of the Hindus, and Hindu priests levy toll 
on the hundred thousand Buddhist pilgrims who come 
every year to Buddha Gaya. A few Buddhist monks live 
in a monastery near by, praying before a beautiful statue 
of Buddha, brought from Japan. 


159 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


For six years Gautama sat cross-legged under the Bo 
Tree fasting and praying. He was naked and covered 
with dirt, and became a living skeleton, as well as an ob¬ 
ject of contempt to the villages about. He was tempted 
by both angels and devils. Legions of demons, some of 
which had thousands of heads, fought around him in vain. 
They threw at him poisoned arrows which were changed 
into flowers as they fell. Hordes of devils in the forms of 
the most beautiful women tried to attract the saint by 
their charms. But every one of the two and thirty 
modes of making men fall were powerless against Gau¬ 
tama, who had conquered all desires. 

After Buddha had vanquished all these temptations and 
attained perfection, he bathed himself in the river and 
partook of food prepared for him by a village maiden from 
the milk of a thousand cows. His vitality returned and he 
straightway became whole. His course from Gaya was a 
triumphal procession in which the gods took part. Flowers 
rained upon him, wells of cool water sprang up by the 
wayside, and divine music was heard. 

From the Bo Tree the sage went to Benares and be¬ 
gan his teaching in the Ganges region, the Holy Land of 
India. He later travelled all over northern India, and 
continued preaching until he died at eighty years of age. 
Upon his death his body was cremated and the ashes were 
divided into eight parts and buried in as many different 
places. During one of my visits to India one portion of 
the ashes of Buddha were found at Peshawar close to the 
border of Afghanistan. There is no doubt of the authen¬ 
ticity of the relics. They were discovered by scientists of 
the archaeological department of the British government, 
and the Viceroy of India had them brought to Calcutta, 
160 


THE ASHES OF BUDDHA 


where he presented them to a delegation of Buddhist 
priests from Burma. 

The ashes, which were discovered through ancient writ¬ 
ings describing their existence, lay in a chamber far down 
under the ground below the heavy foundation of a struc¬ 
ture, long since crumbled to dust. They were enclosed in a 
bronze casket. Inside was a crystal box containing a little 
heap of grayish white powder and four charred human 
bones. Suppose the Christian world to-day should get 
news of the discovery of some of the bones and ashes of 
St. Peter or St. Paul! What a sensation it would create! 
Suppose, further, that we found relics of the Saviour, 
which were real beyond the shadow of a doubt! All 
Christendom would be excited. To millions of people in 
the Far East Buddha means as much as Christ and his 
apostles do to us. So you can imagine the stir made by 
the find at Peshawar. 

The impressive ceremony of the presentation was held 
in the throne room of Government House, the floor of 
which was covered with rich golden carpets. In making 
his speech to the Burmese priests the Viceroy said: 

“The government of India has decided that the relics 
should remain within the confines of the Indian Empire, 
and that Burma, as a Buddhist province, and Mandalay, 
as its ancient capital, should provide for their safe custody. 
I am sure that the great honour done to Burma will be 
thoroughly appreciated by its people, and that the relics 
will be carefully preserved and cherished.” 

The Viceroy concluded his remarks with these words: 

“ I trust, too, that a suitable shrine may be erected at 
Mandalay over these relics, where in future years devout 
pilgrims may gather from all parts of the world to do 
161 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 

honour to the memory of the great founder of their re¬ 
ligion. 

You recall that at Mandalay such a pagoda is now 
building. 

A feature of the occasion was an address by the director 
of the archaeological department of the government of 
India describing how the relics were found. The first in¬ 
formation concerning them came from records left by Chi¬ 
nese pilgrims who were in India about fourteen or fifteen 
hundred years ago. One of these men, a Buddhist monk, 
spent seven years in travelling through the country col¬ 
lecting Buddhist writings and visiting shrines. He tramped 
across the Himalaya Mountains, stopping in the little 
province where Buddha was born. He walked to Buddha 
Gaya, and then went to pray at the various places where 
the relics of Buddha were kept. In the story of his pil¬ 
grimages he described a great pagoda near Peshawar, 
not far from where the Emperor Kanishka had his palace. 
The structure, he said, was about fifteen hundred feet in 
circumference and had thirteen stories. The record of the 
pilgrims states that the relics of the Buddha lay under the 
dome. 

The writings of the Chinese pilgrims were translated 
by M. Foucher, the great French archaeologist. 
Through them he located the site of the ancient pagoda 
as being under one of two mounds lying about a half mile 
east of Peshawar. Finding himself unable to finance the 
excavations required to verify his theory, M. Foucher 
presented his evidence to Dr. Spooner of the archaeological 
department of the Indian government and the latter took 
up the work. Beneath the mounds were found the re¬ 
mains of the great dome. The heavy foundation un- 
162 


THE ASHES OF BUDDHA 


covered shows that the structure it supported was larger 
than any other known Buddhist pagoda. It was square, 
with massive walls of dressed stone, and, according to 
the records of Hiuen Tsang, the Chinese pilgrim, it was so 
lofty that four towers had to be built at the corners to 
hoist the coping stones into place. 

After the dimensions of the pagoda had been outlined, 
and the foundation had been unearthed, the British 
archaeologists sank a shaft down through the stone 
floor to a depth of twenty feet, and came to the relic 
chamber described by the pilgrims. There, in that 
little stone room, buried from the sight of man for more 
than twenty-four hundred years, they found a cylindrical 
bronze casket seven inches high and five inches in 
diameter. 

The slightly curved and overhanging lid represented a 
full-blown lotus, upon which sat a small figure of Buddha. 
Along the lid was a frieze of flying geese, and lower down 
around the main body of the casket were figures of Buddha 
beautifully carved, representing him in the different stages 
of his life. In the centre of these was engraved a standing 
figure of King Kanishka, the great Buddhist ruler and 
conqueror of the second century before Christ, and there 
were also inscriptions stating that the maker was the head 
engraver of the King. 

Inside the bronze box was a lump of rock crystal which 
had been hollowed out at one end for the reception of the 
ashes. It was originally sealed with clay,but the moisture 
had detached the seal, which was lying at the side of the 
crystal. Coins bearing the head of Kanishka were also 
found. 

One would expect India to have more Buddhists than 
163 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


any other land. It was here that Buddha was born, here 
that he spent his whole life, and from here his religion 
spread to other parts of the world. Yet to-day the Bud¬ 
dhists of Hindustan number only a little more than three 
hundred thousand. There are a few along the northern 
frontier of Bengal and upon the lower slopes of the Hima¬ 
layas. In Nepal, where Buddha was born, he has still 
many followers, and in Kashmir, near where his ashes 
were discovered, there are perhaps forty thousand Bud¬ 
dhists. At first the religion of Buddha had great sway 
in India. It spread throughout Hindustan, and at the 
time of King Kanishka was one of the predominant faiths. 
After that it began to decline, and it was almost wiped out 
in northern India after the Mohammedans came in and 
took possession. In southern India Hinduism gradually 
regained its ascendancy. 

There are something like one hundred and fifty mil¬ 
lion Buddhists in the world. Buddhism is the leading 
religion of Japan, and it is estimated that two thirds 
of the Chinese follow it. There are Buddhists in Siberia 
and in the Dutch East Indies, and the faith is supposed 
to be alive in Korea, although the priests there are such 
low fellows that they are the despised and rejected of 
men. 

As I have shown already, Buddhism is strong in Burma 
and Siam, while in Ceylon it survives in its purest form. 
At Kandy in Ceylon is a pagoda rivalling the Golden 
Pagoda at Rangoon in sanctity. It is built over a tooth of 
the teacher, brought to the island more than sixteen cen¬ 
turies ago by a princess of India, who concealed it in her 
clothing. Since then that tooth has been fought over and 
captured and recaptured during several wars, and it is 
164 


THE ASHES OF BUDDHA 


now so holy that people come from all parts of the Bud¬ 
dhist world to see it. The relic, which is shown only with 
the consent of the government, looks more like the tooth 
of a crocodile than that of a man. It is a piece of ivory 
about an inch in diameter and as long as my little finger, 
and reposes on a lotus flower of pure gold under a cluster 
of seven bells of gold set with jewels. 

In recent years there has been a revival of the Buddhist 
religion, due to the missionary efforts of its followers, who 
have adopted methods for propagating their faith that 
are like those used by Christians. They have organized, 
for example, young men's associations, corresponding to 
our Young Men's Christian Association, and are publish¬ 
ing tracts and distributing all sorts of religious literature. 
The faith has so much to commend it that I doubt not 
they will make many converts. 

Buddhism has its ten commandments which are taught 
to the children. The first five are: 

1. Thou shalt not take any life at all. 

2. Thou shalt not steal. 

3. Thou shalt not commit adultery. 

4. Thou shalt not lie. 

5. Thou shalt not drink intoxicating liquors. 

The second five are obligatory chiefly for the monks in 
the monasteries, and for all other good people on holy 
days. They are: 

1. Thou shalt not eat after midday. 

2. Thou shalt not dance or play upon musical instru¬ 
ments. 

3. Thou shalt not use cosmetics. 

4. Thou shalt not stand or sleep on elevated places. 

5. Thou shalt not accept gold or silver. 

165 



FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


The theory of the religion is that every one must work 
out his own salvation, and that no one can help another 
except by example. 

It is a mistake to speak of the worship of Buddha. He 
is not a god, but a teacher. His followers look upon him 
as having been a mortal man, and they believe that any 
mortal may aspire to be what he was. He is their idea 
of the perfect man, and his life is the perfect life. Never¬ 
theless, they pray before his shrine and use his name in 
their prayers. 

While the Buddhist religion contains many beautiful 
doctrines, it has nothing of the worship of God as we 
know Him. Furthermore, it seems to me to be a religion 
of despair rather than of hope. One of its tenets is the 
idea that the greatest evil of mankind is birth. Without 
that, they say, we could not have old age, misery, and 
death, and we would not have to go through the long line 
of transmigrations through which man rises in spiritual 
estate, or descends to hell. According to Buddhism, one's 
soul, like that of John Brown, is always marching on. 
The moment one dies he is born again, his soul passing at 
once into the form of a man, a dog, or some other animal. 
He may go down, down, down, through the different 
degreesof animal life until he falls into oneof the hundred- 
odd Buddhist hells, which are in the middle of the earth, 
where the sufferers spend ten million years or more before 
they are reincarnated. Or he may go upward into better 
and better states, until he at last reaches the heaven 
where the shortest life is ten thousand million years. The 
Buddhist legends tell how their great teacher lived as an 
elephant, as a camel, as a gnat, a swallow, and an eagle. 
He went through every form of existence on the earth, in 
166 


THE ASHES OF BUDDHA 


hell, and in heaven, and when he attained the perfect 
knowledge he could recall them all. 

Buddhism teaches that all man's misfortunes come from 
his bad actions, and all his good fortunes from his 
righteous deeds. Heaven means the extinction of desires. 
This is the great end of life. To wipe out all passion, all 
feeling, and reach Nirvana, “where the believer expects 
to find a sure shelter against all errors, doubts, and fears; 
and a resting place, where his spirit may securely enjoy 
the undisturbed possession of truth." 


167 


CHAPTER XIX 


TRAVELLING ON INDIA’S RAILWAYS 

I F YOU want to get an idea of what railway travel in 
India is like, join me in my trip from Calcutta to 
Benares. We go to the station in a gharry hauled 
by lean horses and driven by a half-starved Bengali in 
turban and loin cloth. We are taking the night express 
and it is 9 o’clock when we reach the station, a large build¬ 
ing covering a block, with long waiting rooms extending 
from the train shed. 

The railway stations in the cities of India are, by 
the way, surprisingly fine. Both the main depots at 
Calcutta are large and convenient; Benares and Delhi 
have handsome buildings, and Victoria Station at Bombay 
cost more than a million dollars and is almost, if not quite, 
the equal of the Union Station at Washington. Even at 
the small towns one finds substantial stone buildings sur¬ 
rounded by flower gardens. The platforms are of stone 
filled in with cement, and raised to the level of the car 
platforms so that one does not have to go up or down steps 
in boarding or leaving a train. 

When we enter the Calcutta station we find the stone 
floors covered with natives, both men and women, sitting 
or lying about. Here they sprawl at full length on the 
flags, and there squat in groups, their backs against the 
railing between the waiting rooms and the train shed. As 
these people see me taking notes, they pull closer around 
168 


TRAVELLING ON INDIA’S RAILWAYS 


them the white sheets in which they are wrapped, shield¬ 
ing their dark faces from the gaze of the foreigner. Some 
have covered their heads and have fallen asleep. Many 
cannot sleep for excitement over the pilgrimage they are 
making to the sacred city of Benares. 

Notice this woman near me. She lies on the floor with 
her head on a bag, so covered that only her thin face can 
be seen. As I look, her husband, a black Hindu in dirty 
white cotton clothing, lies down beside her, puts his head 
on the bag, and is soon fast asleep. 

There, the gong rings! A train is called and the 
third-class passengers push their way through to the cars. 
Some carry baggage upon their heads. Others have 
bundles on shoulders and backs. Nearly all the men are 
barefooted and all wear turbans, caps, or handkerchiefs 
on their heads. Their bodies are only half covered by 
the white sheets draped around them, while their bare 
legs remind me of those foolish lines: 

The poor benighted Hindoo, 

He does the best he kindoo; 

He sticks to caste 
From first to last; 

For pants he makes his skindoo. 

Mixed with this motley crowd are Mohammedans in 
long gowns, Parsees with hats like inverted waste-paper 
baskets, native and British soldiers, and liveried servants 
of civil officials. It is one of the strangest crowds to be 
found anywhere, and the white clothing so predominates 
that in the dim light the effect is somewhat ghostlike. 

We sit down a moment while our servant buys the tick¬ 
ets, checks the baggage, and secures our seats in the train. 

169 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


I have found the servant problem rather acute since I came 
to India. I have already had three bearers, as these per¬ 
sonal servants are called. The first almost froze to death 
at Darjeeling. He was too lazy to get me what I wanted, 
and after I discharged him I found that some of my woollen 
clothes were missing. The second was a dusky liar who 
wore a gorgeous turban as big as a peck measure. He was 
clad partially in European dress and I got rid of him be¬ 
cause my pajamas and stockings were fast disappearing. 
There was also a little trouble as to a gold sovereign which 
I lost. As soon as I mentioned it, he produced the coin, 
saying he had found it in the outside pocket of my over¬ 
coat. 1 now have a tall, fine-looking chap with a swarthy 
complexion and an enormous black moustache. He wears 
a costly turban and a long gown belted in at the waist. 
I pay him thirty-three cents a day, but of course, like all 
the bearers here, he has his commissions. 

Abdullah, as I call him, goes in advance through the 
gates, and when we reach the cars we find our pillows and 
bedding spread out in our compartment. In India every 
one carries his own sleeping conveniences while travelling. 
The first-class cars have leather-covered benches, on 
which the passengers’ beds are made up by their bearers. 
In the morning the servants will come in from the third- 
class cars to roll up the comforts and rugs and pack them 
into the canvas bags carried for the purpose. 

When they are not crowded the Indian cars are com¬ 
fortable enough. They are built on the English plan, 
and are about two thirds the length of our cars but a little 
bit wider. Each is divided into compartments which 
look more like long boxes than anything else, and are 
walled on two sides by glass windows and doors. As a 


TRAVELLING ON INDIA'S RAILWAYS 


rule there are no corridors, so that when one wants to go 
into the diner, he must wait for a station, get out of his 
own compartment, walk along the station platform, and 
step from it into the dining car. If the train is an express 
he may have to stay there an hour or so. 

I remember quite vividly an alarming experience on my 
first trip to India when I was shut up tight in my railway 
compartment. It was on one of the trunk lines and the 
train was going at thirty miles an hour and making but 
few stops. I was getting myself comfortable for a long 
journey, when happening to glance from my book to the 
lighted oil lamp above, I noticed that the glass globe was 
broken. The swaying of the train splashed the oil up 
near the flame, and I feared that at any minute the kero¬ 
sene would catch fire, the lamp would break, and a pint 
of burning oil would come down upon the carpet of the 
little box of a room in which I was locked. I looked wildly 
around for a bellrope. Nowadays all the compartments 
have pulls to stop the trains, but if this one had such 
a convenience I certainly could not find it. I ex¬ 
amined the walls and the floor of the compartment, and 
sought everywhere for some means of summoning aid or 
signalling the train to stop. It was in vain, and I had to 
wait half an hour or more before we drew into a station 
and I was able to call the guard and have the lamp taken 
out. Had there been an explosion, I suppose I should 
have had to stay and get burned up or else must have 
jumped through the car window while the train was going 
full speed. 

The Central India road has some cars with corridors 
running along one side from end to end. Into the cor¬ 
ridors open two-berth compartments equipped with elec- 
171 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


trie fans, lights, and bells. There are also servants' 
compartments connected with these cars. At each end 
of the coach is a bathroom with a big tub, and one can 
have a wash as he goes flying across the country at twenty- 
five miles an hour. 

1 say twenty-five miles. That is rather fast for India. 
Many of the trains do not make twenty miles, and some 
not over fifteen per hour, while an express only now and 
then speeds up to thirty or so. Everything here is run 
oriental fashion, which means that to-morrow or the day 
after will do as well as to-day. 

It is interesting to watch the traffic from these Indian 
trains. Now and then you pass an animal car filled with 
camels or catch a glimpse of an elephant gazing out on the 
landscape sliding past him. There are stock trains filled 
with the sacred humped cattle of Hindustan, and I have 
seen cars of polo ponies, sheep, and wild beasts in cages. 
Dogs are carried on trains at the rate of twelve cents for 
every fifty miles. No dog can be taken into the passenger 
cars except with the consent of all the occupants, and 
then only on payment of double fare for the pet. Some 
of the baggage cars have dog compartments and cats, 
monkeys, rabbits, and guinea pigs are sent along at dog 
rates. Not long ago a woman came to one of the stations 
with a turtle in her hand and was about to enter the car 
with it when the guard stopped her. She showed him 
the turtle and asked him whether she could take it inside 
without paying two fares. He replied: 

“Yes! Cats is dogs and monkeys is dogs, but turtles is 
fish, and there’s no rule against fish." 

In travelling over India I have found the cars univer¬ 
sally well filled. Every train has its first-, second-, and 


172 


TRAVELLING ON INDIA’S RAILWAYS 


third-class accommodations. In the first travel British 
officials, Americans, and well-to-do English tourists, with 
now and then a rajah, or some high native official. In 
the second are the poorer classes of the British, army 
officers of second rank, and perhaps prosperous natives, 
while the masses of the people all ride third class. An¬ 
other class, known as the intermediate, is provided for 
British soldiers and other Europeans who cannot afford to 
pay second-class fares and yet do not want to travel with 
the natives. The Indian Nationalists bitterly resent the 
fact that the natives have been excluded from these in¬ 
termediate cars 

As to the women passengers, there are special first- and 
second-class cars for them. Many higher-caste Hindu 
ladies would consider themselves disgraced if they showed 
their faces in public, and in India no Mohammedan woman 
goes about without her veil. The women pull their shawls 
over their faces as they walk through the stations, though 
at the same time they may leave their ankles and calves en¬ 
tirely bare. Their ankles are often loaded with bands of 
silver and gold, and their slippers may be embroidered in 
gold thread. Attached to the train going up to Darjeeling 
was a car entirely covered with a circus-tent canvas and 
filled with Hindu ladies. They were riding through the 
finest scenery in the world, but for all that they could see of 
it, they might as well have been tied up in leather bags 
and sent on as mail. However, no men caught a glimpse 
of them, so I suppose they were satisfied. 

Severe penalties are imposed upon any man, European 
or native, who even attempts to enter the women’s com¬ 
partments. European women may, if they desire to do 
so, travel in the cars with their husbands, but this is not 
173 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


generally a comfortable arrangement for either. The 
men's compartments are uncurtained, and in this hot 
climate the first thing a man does on boarding a sleeping 
car is to get into his pajamas, even though it may be some 
time before he is ready to turn in. 

The white ants, or termites, used to be the great enemies 
of the railroad in India, for they ate the wooden ties and 
the telegraph poles. They chewed up the posts at the 
stations, and if a pile of timber were left unprotected, 
it would soon be carried away or so hollowed out that it 
dropped to pieces on being touched. This is why in 
thousands of miles of travel over India I have seen so 
many telegraph poles made of iron and so few of wood. 
Steel ties were used for a time, until it was found that 
creosoting the wood keeps out the ants, and so wooden ties 
thus treated are now set in the roadbeds. 

The prevailing idea in America is that the British hold 
all the good jobs in India. This is not true of the rail¬ 
roads. Many good places are held by the natives, al¬ 
though the most mportant positions still go to the British. 
There are Indian construction labourers, Indian brake- 
men and station agents, with now and then an Indian 
engineer. A large proportion of the station clerks, tele¬ 
graph operators, and conductors are Anglo-Indians, or 
mixed bloods, who have been trained at the government 
schools and who make competent minor officials. 

It was seventy years ago that the British opened the 
first line of railroad in India, connecting Bombay with the 
silk village of Thana, twenty-one miles away. To-day 
there are thirty-seven thousand miles of track, or more 
than in any other land in Asia. India’s mileage is sur¬ 
passed only by the mileages of Canada, Russia, and the 


174 


TRAVELLING ON INDIA’S RAILWAYS 

United States. China, with a population about equal to 
that of India, has but seven thousand miles of railroads. 
Yet India’s railroad development is small compared with 
our two hundred and sixty-four thousand miles for a pop¬ 
ulation only about one third as large as hers, or with Can¬ 
ada’s one mile of track for every twenty-three inhabitants. 
The British are now at work on a big programme of ex¬ 
tending and improving the railroads of the country and 
important lines are under construction. 

In the early days, as there was not enough private 
capital available in India for railroad building, the govern¬ 
ment subsidized various corporations. By the end of 
i860 contracts had been made with eight of these British 
companies for the construction of five thousand miles of 
line. This scheme laid the foundation of the railway 
system as it exists to-day. The government guaranteed 
to the corporations a five-per-cent, return on their invest¬ 
ment and a free grant of all the land needed. In return, 
the companies agreed to share with the government any 
surplus after dividend requirements had been met. Later 
on, the native rulers were encouraged to construct rail¬ 
ways in their territories. It was not until 1900 that the 
railroads of British India showed a gain for the govern¬ 
ment, but since then the profits have been growing from 
year to year. As the contracts of the guaranteed com¬ 
panies expired, their lines were purchased and then re¬ 
leased to the companies on terms more profitable to the 
state. 

Thus there grew up in India a somewhat complicated 
railway situation. There are now in the whole country 
some twenty-five thousand miles of state lines, many of 
which are operated by corporations; five thousand miles 
175 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


of native state roads; and some seven thousand miles 
operated by assisted companies. With the rise of the 
nationalistic spirit in India has come a demand that the 
railroads be managed directly by the state rather than 
by English corporations domiciled either in England or 
in India. It is probable that as their contracts expire, 
other roads will, like the East Indian and the Great Indian 
Peninsular, two of the most important railways in the 
country, be taken over by the government. 

The railroads are a storm centre for a good deal of 
the unrest in India to-day. Gandhi, the great “non¬ 
cooperator,” maintains that “ Railroads carry man away 
from his Maker/' 

In the course of a talk I had with one of the leading rail¬ 
road officials in India, he said: 

“One of the striking features of the unrest just now is 
an anti-railroad crusade carried on by the revolutionary 
agitators. They claim that the roads were built with 
British money to rob the natives. They say that the 
dividends and interest go out of India, and that the rail¬ 
ways are a bad thing for the people, not only in a money 
way, but because they imperil the sanctity of caste. The 
masses can always be stirred up by the idea that their 
religion is attacked, and the Hindu extremists tell them 
that the railroads are breaking down caste distinctions; 
and that damnation is sure to follow. They advise the 
people not to patronize them and say they should be given 
over to the native leaders, who could provide accommoda¬ 
tions better suited to their religious prejudices. Yet in 
spite of the agitators, the travel keeps up and the third- 
class traffic is increasing much faster than the railways can, 
provide accommodations for it. Indeed, the continued 
176 


TRAVELLING ON INDIA’S RAILWAYS 


over-crowding of third-class cars is another of the griev¬ 
ances the Indians have against the British. 

“ But are the extremists not right in saying that the rail¬ 
roads are affecting caste barriers?” I asked. 

“Yes, to a certain extent that is the case. When we 
first began to build railways the natives demanded that 
special cars be furnished to segregate certain castes. The 
Hindus and the Mohammedans would not sit together, 
and the Brahmans demanded separate accommodations. 
After they found that they could not get the cars, they 
tacitly decided that caste must be ignored while they 
were on the trains. So the native apparently drops such 
prejudices when he enters the cars, although he assumes 
them the more rigorously when he leaves. 

“Our pilgrimage traffic is enormous,” continued the 
official. “Some authorities estimate that every year more 
than one million Hindus journey to Benares to bathe in 
the Ganges, while in some years eight hundred thousand 
go in one week to Allahabad. It used to take weeks and 
months for the average pilgrim to go to Benares or some 
other place of pilgrimage. The devout Hindu now finds 
he can make it by rail in a few hours or days. We cater 
to this pilgrim traffic, and do all we can to accommodate 
it. Moreover, we have what might be called a heavy 
traffic during the wedding season. On many of the roads 
the crowds are then so great we cannot carry them. We 
make the rates as low as possible, and we have, on the 
whole, the lowest passenger fares in the world. The third- 
class fares are only half a cent a mile, yet this is our most 
profitable passenger traffic and largely pays our divi¬ 
dends.” 


177 


CHAPTER XX 


BENARES, HOLY CITY OF THE HINDUS 

O NCE again I am in Benares, which is to more 
i than two hundred million people the holiest 
f city on the face of the globe. This place is 
considered so hallowed that, according to the 
believers in Brahma and his various manifestations, all 
Hindus who die within fifty miles of it go straight to 
heaven, no matter what their lives may have been. 
Even Moslems, Buddhists, and Christians share in the 
spiritual benefits of a pilgrimage to the sacred spot. This 
is the greatest pilgrimage city on earth. The tomb of 
Confucius in China, the birthplace of Mohammed at 
Mecca, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusa¬ 
lem all put together do not draw nearly so many worship¬ 
pers. More than a million pilgrims kneel at these shrines 
every year. Thousands make the journey here by pros¬ 
trating themselves again and again, measuring the distance 
from their homes by their own lengths on the ground. 
Once arrived, every pilgrim goes around the forty-five- 
mile circuit of the five holy spots near the city. This 
pilgrimage of the Five Places follows a route marked with 
temples and shrines and takes six full days. 

The temples in Benares and along the pilgrims’ routes 
are full of images of the various Hindu gods, and a visit 
to them is the quickest way to become acquainted with 
the deities of this religion and the many strange beliefs of 
178 



If you have your own teeth, a strong stomach, and no sense of smell, 
travel by camel cart really isn’t so bad. In remote and desert parts of 
India it is one of the few ways of getting about. 



No country has a greater variety of means of transportation than 
India, where none walks who can ride. Human labour is so cheap that 
one can be carried in a dandy at a cost of but a few cents an hour. 








The temple of Juggernaut at Puri was built by a twelfth-century rajah 
in expiation for having killed a Brahman. Once a year the image of the 
god, a log rudely carved, is paraded through the streets in its huge car. 





BENARES, HOLY CITY OF THE HINDUS 

its devotees. Brahma is represented by an idol with four 
heads and four arms. He is the great creator who made 
mankind and all things that live. Sarasvati, his wife, is 
often represented beside him as a gorgeous lady riding 
upon a peacock and clad only in jewels. She is the spe¬ 
cial patron of music and speech. All liars pray to her, 
and she takes away their sins. 

Vishnu, the second great god, has numerous temples 
here. He is known as the preserver who came down to 
earth to deliver man from demons, snakes, and wicked 
men, and from anger, avarice, and lust. He has his own 
special heaven, and can take his followers there. This 
god is said to have had ten incarnations. As Rama, he is 
the model son, brother, and husband, and that is why the 
name Rama is so often given to children. When friends 
meet they say, “Ram, Ram,” by way of greeting. In 
the character of Krishna, Vishnu poses as a lover and 
husband, and according to tradition he played the part 
well. He had more than sixteen thousand wives and one 
hundred and eighty thousand children, not counting the 
girls. 

In another incarnation Vishnu is Juggernaut. The 
name is Sanskrit for “Lord of the Universe.” Juggernaut 
is worshipped in various places in India, but the temple at 
Puri in Orissa is the most hallowed of his shrines. At the 
great festival that takes place there every summer the town 
is filled to overflowing with tens of thousands of pilgrims. 
Every temple of Juggernaut has its car, which typifies the 
active, moving world over which the god presides; but most 
sacred of all is the one at Puri, which is forty-five feet high 
and thirty-five feet square and has sixteen wheels each seven 
feet in diameter. Once a year the crude log image that 
179 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


represents Juggernaut is mounted on the car which is then 
drawn at a snail's pace through the streets. It is followed 
by two other cars, each of which bears a log, one of them 
the brother and the other the sister of Juggernaut. The 
distance covered is only a mile but it takes days to make 
it. As the images are put in place the massed worshippers 
kneel and bow their heads to the dust. Then rushing 
forward, they fight for a chance to help draw the huge 
vehicles onward. Sometimes in the scramble or in the 
terrific heat Hindus are killed around the cars. Some¬ 
times, perhaps, people old, diseased, or unbearably dis¬ 
couraged have seized this opportunity to commit suicide; 
but the number of those who have perished beneath the 
wheels of the car of Juggernaut has been greatly exag¬ 
gerated, and the idea that the god desires human victims 
is an error. According to Chaitanya, the great apostle of 
Juggernaut, the destruction of the least of God's creatures 
is a sin against the Creator. 

The wife of Vishnu is Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and 
luxury, who sprang from the froth of the ocean when it 
was churned by the gods. She corresponds somewhat to 
the Greek Aphrodite, risen from the sea at Cyprus to be¬ 
come the ideal of love and beauty. 

The last of the three great gods is Siva, the Lord of the 
Universe, and both the destroyer and the giver of life. 
He sits enthroned on the Himalayan heights, his throat 
veiled in blue mists. The Ganges wanders in the matted 
forests of his locks before it plunges down upon the plains 
below. Thirty-three million spirits do his bidding. One 
of the most sacred of the many sacred places in India is a 
cave twelve thousand feet up in the mountains. Year 
after year holy men toil up the steep ascent to the 
180 


BENARES, HOLY CITY OF THE HINDUS 

cavern at Amarnath in Kashmir where a spring, eternally 
frozen, has taken the shape of the symbol of Siva as the 
giver of life. 

Siva’s wife is the terrible Kali. This lady wears a gar¬ 
land of human skulls and a necklace of dead men’s hands, 
and her long, outstretched tongue is supposed always to 
drip blood. Before the British took India human sacri¬ 
fices were made to propitiate this goddess, and during 
a famine of a generation ago, human heads decked with 
flowers were placed on her altars. I have heard, too, 
that within the last ten years a native prince was de¬ 
throned by the British because he had offered a human 
sacrifice to the insatiable Kali. She was the goddess of 
the thugs, the caste whose members used to travel through 
India, strangling victims in her honour. She is supposed 
to live in the cemeteries and to delight in pestilence, 
famine, and all the miseries of mankind. Her worship, 
which is altogether a worship of fear, is one of the most 
revolting features of the Hindu religion. 

There are, besides, many other manifestations of Vishnu 
and Siva, as well as hosts of local deities, so that in its 
lower forms Hinduism has wandered far from the ideal of 
one god and has multiplied gods, godlings, ghosts, and de¬ 
mons, until there are now in its theology something like 
three hundred and thirty-three millions of these beings. 
There are, on the other hand, Hindu sects with the purest 
philosophical conceptions. Their members believe in one 
God alone, who made the heavens and the earth and who 
permeates everything. He is a part of every man and 
therefore man’s acts are His acts. 

The sacred books of Hinduism are the Vedas, which 
are published in Sanskrit and are about the oldest of 
181 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


religious manuscripts. There are four of them, the most 
important of which is the Rig Veda. This contains 
more than one thousand hymns and commemorates 
the march of the Aryan race from Kabul to the Punjab, 
or “Land of the Five Rivers.” And then there is the 
Sama Veda, which is largely taken up with religious 
rituals; the Atharva Veda, composed chiefly of incanta¬ 
tions, and the Yajur Veda, the publication of which the 
government has tried to suppress on accounts of its ob¬ 
scenity. 

Everywhere I go 1 see Brahman priests consoling and at 
the same time fleecing the pilgrims. They are distinguish¬ 
able by the painted marks of their caste on their faces 
and half-naked bodies, and by the cords around their 
necks. There are always more than thirty thousand of 
them in Benares, gathered about the temples or seated 
under great umbrellas of matting down by the Ganges. 

Benares is a city of sacred beasts, as well as holy men. 
It swarms with sacred cows and great white bulls with 
humps on their backs. It has sacred apes and a great 
temple in which swarms of monkeys live with a goddess. 
I visited that temple this morning and watched the 
priests sacrifice a live goat to Kali. In the courtyard is 
a stone upon which is a forked post with two prongs. 
The goat’s neck was tied to the fork and cut off with 
a cleaver by a half-naked Hindu. As the ax went through, 
the blood spurted out, and the image of the horrid goddess, 
it seemed to me, burst into a grin. 

The monkeys throng the courts of this temple and live 
in the trees around it. They are revered as representa¬ 
tions of the monkey god Hanuman, and must not be 
harmed. Priests and pilgrims feed them and they are so 
182 



Cattle are held so sacred by the Hindus that if a begging bull comes 
into a village the people load him with garments and other offerings of 
which his owner gets the benefit. 












The Benares temple of Durga, goddess of slaughter, is called the Mon¬ 
key Temple because of the hundreds of monkeys living in the trees in the 
courtyard and infesting the shrine itself. It would be a deadly sin to kill 
one of these representatives of the Monkey God. 












BENARES, HOLY CITY OF THE HINDUS 


tame that they will come to one's feet to beg for food. 
At the entrance to the temple were peddlers selling pop¬ 
corn, some of which I bought. The minute I entered the 
temple, several of the little beasts jumped at me and 
grabbed the corn from the plate and as the grain spilled 
out upon the floor monkeys came down in droves from the 
trees and chattered and grinned at me while they devoured 
it. I was warned not to touch or strike them, as they are 
vicious and sometimes bite strangers. There were many 
baby monkeys, trotting about by themselves or with their 
parents; and a dozen half-starved dogs rushed in and 
fought with the monkeys for the popcorn. The filth of 
the whole place was indescribable. 

From the monkey temple I went to the Golden Temple 
in the heart of Benares. With its gilded and gold-plated 
spires it is one of the most beautiful buildings of the city. 
It is dedicated to Siva, in his character of Lord of the 
Universe. The Golden Temple is about the holiest place 
in Benares, and I was stopped at the door by the priest 
and told that none but Hindus could enter. I could see 
through the doorway, however, that the court was filled 
with people from all over India. There were the white 
costumes of the Bengalis, the pinks and blues and yel¬ 
lows of the natives of the United Provinces, the deep blues 
and reds and oranges of southern India, and the coarse 
homespuns of the Himalayan foothills. I saw also rich 
dresses of the wealthy side by side with the rags of the poor. 
But members of the lowest castes may not enter here. 

Connected with this temple is a courtyard in which is the 
Well of Knowledge. The water of this pool is so holy 
that he who drinks it will go straight up to heaven. The 
precious liquid is ladled out by priests and given to the 
183 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 

pilgrims. The latter used to throw flowers and other 
things down into the well as their offerings. These rotted 
and made the water filthy and putrid, but nevertheless 
the pilgrims gulped it down eagerly. The well is now, 
screened and protected from such contributions. Though 
it still smells like bad eggs, the water is bought by the cup¬ 
ful and swallowed with gusto. 

Not far from the Golden Temple is a temple filled with 
cows and bulls, the animals sacred to Siva. Imagine a 
court the size of an ordinary barnyard with a bandstand 
in the centre. Let the court be walled around with great 
stalls, in which stand a hundred sacred bulls. They are 
white and dove-coloured, and as clean-limbed as Jerseys. 
On their backs are great humps, and their ears hang down. 
They are as fat as butter, fatter by far than the lean 
devotees hovering about them and pressing food upon 
them. Here and there a bull or a cow moves through the 
courtyard munching the flowers and grass handed it by 
the pilgrims. I saw a cow go up the steps to the altar in 
front of the image of the god and bite at a wreath of 
flowers hung about a worshipper’s neck. The Hindu 
thought this a sign of the favour of the gods and showed 
his appreciation by bringing Ganges water and giving it 
to the cow. 

I saw, too, a pretty slender brown maiden whose form, 
worthy of Aphrodite herself, was clad in a single piece of 
navy blue cotton. Around her head was a red cashmere 
shawl which hid all her face except her great black eyes. 
Her hands and arms were bare and she carried a heavy 
garland of bright yellow flowers. She brought this to the 
biggest and most beautiful bull in the stables, and chanting 
a prayer, offered it to him. The dove-coloured beast ate 
184 


BENARES, HOLY CITY OF THE HINDUS 


the flowers and as he did so she threw her arms around 
his neck and gave him a hug The scene made me think 
of Apis, the bull of Memphis, who was worshipped by the 
Egyptians thousands of years ago, and also of the fair Io, 
whom Juno turned into a cow because the flirtatious 
Jupiter had been casting sheep’s eyes at her. 

I see these sacred cows and bulls everywhere in Benares. 
They go about the streets like gentlemen and ladies of 
leisure, staring into the shops and crowding human beings 
out of the way. Now and then they visit a fruit or vege¬ 
table stand, and take a bite of such of the wares as they 
fancy. The merchants do not strike or ill treat them in 
any way. Indeed, they will not even drive the animals 
off, and, though a bull or a cow may chew up a fruit 
seller’s whole stock in trade, he must smile and look 
pleased. 

To the Hindus all cattle are holy and the humped breed 
native to the country are known as the sacred cattle of 
India. It is a sin to mistreat one of these beasts, and for 
a Hindu to slaughter cattle or eat beef would mean not only 
loss of caste in this world but punishment in the next 
transmigration. The Hindus scorn all Mohammedans and 
Westerners because they are beef eaters, and among the 
first bills introduced into the provincial legislatures after 
these became more truly representative were those prohib¬ 
iting the slaughter of cattle. The bills were not passed, 
but their introduction shows the Hindu point of view. 
Gandhi once said that protection of all cows is the central 
fact of Hinduism, that the cow stands for “the entire 
sub-human world,” and that through her protection man 
realizes “his identity with all that lives.” He explained 
that the cow was selected for exaltation because she was in 
185 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


India “the best companion’' and “the giver of plenty.” 
She is, he said, the mother to millions of Indian mankind. 
I must say, however, it appears to me a long way from 
the heights of Gandhi’s eloquence in behalf of the cow to 
the degraded worship of the beasts in the temple of 
Benares. 

As I walked along the streets I noticed men peddling 
flowers for the bulls, and necklaces, anklets, and other jew¬ 
ellery. There were scores of beggars, and the lame, halt, 
and blind were jostled by the bulls and cows. One poor 
fellow, all skin and bones, and naked except for a breech 
cloth, had lost his arms at the biceps, and he wagged the 
scarred stumps at me as he nodded his head to the brass 
plate on his knee. He appeared delighted with the one 
fourth of a cent that I gave him. 

Yogis and fanatics are numerous in Benares. Siva 
is the patron god of these religious devotees who form a 
caste of their own. I see them everywhere, undergoing all 
sorts of mortification of the flesh to attain merit and con¬ 
sequent salvation. To-day I photographed one sitting 
in a handcart which was being pushed from place to place 
by his admirers. It was a rude three-wheeled affair, open 
all around and decorated with flowers. The fakir himself 
was the most horrible human figure I have ever seen. He 
was a living skeleton, almost stark naked, with great, 
round, staring eyes and long frowsy hair. His hands, 
which lay over the dashboard of the vehicle, were 
mere claws. His shoulder bones seemed about to burst 
through his skin, and he was so doubled up that though 
he sat erect, his bony knees were thrust up into his arm- 
pits. His face and body were smeared with ashes. 

I have seen many of these men during my travels in 
186 


BENARES, HOLY CITY OF THE HINDUS 

India. They never wash, and pride themselves on their 
uncleanliness. Their methods of torture are legion. 1 
have seen some who have sat or stood still until their 
bodies have stiffened, and they have lost the use of their 
muscles and joints. Some hold their tightly clenched fists 
overhead until the fingernails grow into the flesh of their 
palms. There are yogis at Benares who never sit down 
and others who lie on beds of iron spikes or upon masses 
of broken stones. Some try to acquire merit by refusing 
to sleep, and others by eating all sorts of vile foods. Such 
men often carry about human skulls as drinking cups. 

Among these so-called holy men are some that are able 
to walk through fire, and at every holy fair you may see a 
half dozen or so undergoing the Ordeal of the Five Fires. 
The fakir sits almost naked, just far enough away from 
the four fires about him to prevent the flesh from sizzling. 
The fifth fire is the tropical sun blazing down on his head. 

Others claim that they can remain alive though buried 
underground for long periods. They declare that they 
can seal the lungs by putting the tip of the tongue into 
the windpipe and then they allow themselves to be in¬ 
terred. Not all these cases appear to be frauds. Re¬ 
liable witnesses report that they have seen the yogis dug 
up alive after such burials. Some say that the men go 
into a state of hibernation like that of bears in winter. A 
doctor who examined a yogi buried alive said that he de¬ 
tected a faint breathing during the period of interment. 
Of course, in most instances the burials are pure humbug. 
Sometimes the yogis are said to be buried alive for a 
week, but in such cases it will be found that there is a 
cleverly concealed hole through the ground to the mouth 
of the yogi. 


87 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


But worse than the spectacle presented by these holy 
men, their filthy practices and needless suffering, or even 
their frauds, is the fact that they live on the public and 
cost the Indian people something like sixty million dollars 
a year. They are most expensive parasites upon the body 
of one of the poorest peoples in the world. 


CHAPTER XXI 


THE BATHERS AND BURNING GHATS OF THE GANGES 

B ENARES is holy largely because it lies on the 
Ganges. That river means far more to the 
Hindu than does the Jordan to the Christian, 
and it is considered more or less sacred all the way 
from its source in the glaciers of the Himalayas to its 
mouth in the Bay of Bengal. But some spots, such 
as Benares and Allahabad, are holier than others. A 
bath taken at certain places in the Ganges, if accom¬ 
panied by the proper state of mind and the right pray¬ 
ers, washes away sin. Some pilgrims make journeys on 
foot almost from its source to the mouth, spending years 
on the way. Just now many are coming to the holy 
places by railroad, and as I have said, the pilgrimage 
traffic to Benares is enormous. The city is so filled with 
pilgrims that in some respects it makes me think of our 
seaside resorts. It is a great Hindu watering place where 
the people come to rest their bodies while saving their 
souls. Many of the Hindu rajahs and princes have villas 
here, and the river is walled with temples, rest houses, and 
other beehives of humanity. A number of rest houses for 
the accommodation of poor pilgrims have been put up by 
wealthy philanthropists. 

The steps, or ghats, going down into the water and far 
out into the stream are filled with bathers, and if you have 
any doubt that the people believe their sins are washed 
189 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


away by the Ganges, just come along to the river. We 
shall take a launch and ride down among the bathers. 
The mornings here are cold and raw, so we put on our 
overcoats. We shiver as we sit on the deck and are glad 
we are not Hindus, for it is the duty of the pilgrim to 
take his bath in the river before breakfast. The sun is 
just rising, but we find the stream full. The steps are 
crowded with worshippers clad in the thinnest of clothing. 
There are shrivelled old men and women, wrapped in 
single breadths of dirty white cotton, standing waist deep 
in the water and holding up their long, bony arms, while 
with chattering teeth they mutter prayers to their gods. 
Now and then they duck down into the water, coming up 
gasping and looking colder than ever. To you or me 
such a bath might cause death. It may bring death to 
them, but death at Benares means for the Hindu a better 
life in his next incarnation. 

There are also plump girls and young men. As the 
water trickles over them they whisper their prayers. 
The women raise their arms toward heaven, showing gold 
and silver bracelets extending from wrist to elbow. Some 
wear gold nose rings, and others have ear ornaments hang¬ 
ing down to their shoulders Not a few hide their faces; 
they may be high-caste Hindu maidens. As a rule, the 
women do not bathe with the men but huddle off in 
groups by themselves. They come down in parties, each 
carrying a brass jar in which to take back some water to 
be used in religious ceremonies at home, or to sprinkle on 
the dead. 

As we go down the river we see that the bathers keep 
on their clothes as they enter the water, although these 
garments are often no more than breech cloths. The 


190 



Benares swarms with fakirs, holy men undergoing mortification of the 
flesh to attain salvation. This one has long collected admiration and 
tribute, because for years he has lived on a bed of spikes. 





Every Hindu wishes to die beside the Ganges, that he may have his 
body burned on its banks and his ashes sprinkled on its sacred waters. 
Thus he attains to higher estate in his next incarnation. 









THE BATHERS AND BURNING GHATS 


Hindus think it indecent to go naked into the Ganges, and 
great was the indignation when some Englishmen bathed 
here perfectly nude. They call the river Mother Ganga, 
and when they step down into it speak of being embraced 
by the goddess. 

The women bathers are usually clad only in a cotton 
sheet which clings to their bodies as they leave the water. 
Stepping out, they turn their backs to the men, and, re¬ 
moving the cloth, wash it and themselves while they pray. 
The Indian women are extremely modest and make 
changes from wet to dry garments without any exposure 
of their persons. 

As our boat goes on we pass temple after temple, on the 
steps of which sit half-naked priests with boxes of red and 
white paints before them. With these they put caste 
marks on the foreheads of the faithful. Now we come to 
a break in the buildings. Here is a ravine lined with what 
look like campfires. We draw nearer and can see that 
the wood of each fire has been piled up in a square, like 
railroad ties, and on each pyre lies a corpse. Those are 
the bodies of the dead which are being burned on the banks 
of the Ganges, so that their ashes may float out upon its 
waters and their souls go straight to heaven. I have 
seen cremation in many lands, but nothing like this. The 
bodies are burned right out in the open, and the nearest 
relative of the dead lights the fire. The wood is usually 
arranged by Dorns, who belong to one of the lowest of the 
castes, for the touch of the dead is pollution. 

We have drifted just opposite a funeral pyre. The 
wind has sprung up and is fanning the flame. There is a 
crackling and frying, the smoke becomes denser, and a fat 
Brahman’s body has burst out in a blaze. It is a horrible 


19 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


sight. The Doms shield their faces from the heat and 
turn them toward the river to cool off. Standing at some 
distance are the relatives of the departed, looking sad and 
reverent. 

We land from our boats and stop awhile watching the 
scene. There are ashes and fires everywhere. Here is 
the emaciated body of a woman clad in white cotton. 
The shaved head lies on a dirty blue pillow six inches 
thick. The thin arms are folded. Next to her is the 
corpse of a well-to-do merchant, which the Doms are pre¬ 
paring for burning on a pile of cordwood two feet high and 
about six feet square. These Hindu undertakers first 
spread white cheesecloth over the wood and then place 
upon it the naked body, stretched at full length. After 
covering it with cheesecloth, they pile up more wood, 
insert cedar kindlings, and borrow a shovelful of coals 
from the next fire. Oil is poured on, the fire blazes up, 
to burn until only ashes are left. The Doms throw these 
into the Ganges, and that ends the ceremony. 

Though belonging to one of the lowest castes, the Doms 
are said to be rich. I have heard of one who has made a 
half million dollars burning the dead. The charges for 
their services vary according to the wealth and caste of the 
person whose body they cremate. A peasant may be re¬ 
duced to ashes for a dollar or so, while a rajah will get off 
cheap at three hundred dollars. It is pitiful to see poverty- 
stricken Hindus come with a corpse and stop to haggle with 
the Doms, whose business policy is “no money, no wood; 
no wood, no fire.” Often the poor creatures have not in all 
the world enough to pay the lowest rate. It usually ends 
by the Doms taking the last cent they can squeeze and 
then the relatives are subjected to the pain and humilia- 
192 


THE BATHERS AND BURNING GHATS 


tion of seeing their dead cremated without sufficient wood 
to reduce the body to ashes. There are vultures hanging 
about, which feed upon such corpses, snatching the flesh 
out of the river as the remains float down the stream; for, 
though there are strict regulations against such practices, 
a partly burned body is pitched into the river now and 
then. 

As we walk up through the city we stop at an open place 
near the river and watch the barbers shaving the wor¬ 
shippers after their bath in the Ganges. The price of a 
shave or a hair-cut is two cents. Barber and customer 
are almost naked and both sit on the ground. See this 
man being shaved. His neck, chin, and eyebrows have 
been scraped. The barber is now shaving him under the 
arms and taking the hair off his chest. When he has 
finished the Hindu’s skin will be as bare as a drumhead 
save for one little black lock left on the crown. You can 
see it there now. It is so scanty that we can count the 
hairs. There are just thirteen in all, and they are about 
six inches long. That is the holy queue, which some 
Hindus and most Indian Moslems preserve as a sort of 
tug-rope by which they may be pulled into heaven when 
they pass out of this world. 


193 


CHAPTER XXII 


THE SLAVES OF CASTE 

A S I walked about the streets of the sacred city of 

/\ Benares to-day, I passed a native who was just 
/"■’% beginning to eat his rice from a brass bowl. 
-A jL All at once with a look of disgust he emptied 
the contents of his bowl upon the ground. The man was 
old, dirty, and ragged, and looked as if he had scarcely 
ever had a square meal. I was amazed, and asked the 
reason for his action. I was told that he was a pilgrim 
from southern India, where caste is most rigidly ob¬ 
served, and that in passing him my shadow had fallen 
on his food and so polluted it that he would not eat it. 

I was a foreigner and therefore had no caste, while he, 
though so poor and wretched, was an upper-caste Hindu. 
Probably that was the only food he had money to buy 
to-day, yet under the circumstances, he would go hungry 
rather than touch it. 

The other day while visiting a temple here I came upon a 
Hindu with a beautiful brass bowl beside him. He had 
just come up from the Ganges and had set the bowl on a 
ledge. I picked it up, thinking to buy it. Thereupon the 
man grew angry, and my guide said that the Hindu could 
not use the bowl until it had been heated red hot and thus 
purged of the pollution of my touch. 

In India one bumps into caste at every turn. My 
bearer will not sweep my room, for that is a menial service 
194 



As soon as he has purified himself, the Brahman priest paints on his 
forehead the red and white marks of his sect and caste. The sacred cord 
over his shoulder also distinguishes him from all low-caste men. 






All over the country grain is threshed by the hoofs of bullocks. If 
one of the sacred creatures pauses to snatch a mouthful, no Hindu would 
commit the sin of switching him. 




THE SLAVES OF CASTE 


to be performed by a sweeper, who is several grades be¬ 
neath him. Neither will he black my boots. The cow is 
sacred, so is its skin, and therefore leather workers and 
bootblacks are low-caste men. The other evening I asked 
my man to tell me the price of steak. He refused to defile 
his mouth with the word, and for him to handle a juicy 
tenderloin would mean loss of caste. 

I stopped to-day before an itinerant sweetmeat peddler 
and began to finger some of the candies on his table. He 
grew angry and told me to keep my hands off, as the 
Hindus would not buy anything a foreigner had touched. 
Such things are especially characteristic of the members 
of the higher castes. In the jails of India the cook for 
the high-caste prisoners is always a Brahman, for otherwise 
they would not eat. I am told that prisoners have en¬ 
dured flogging and have even starved to death rather 
than eat food cooked by a low-caste man. 

On my travels in the Far East I have frequently been 
upon steamers with Hindus of one grade or another. 
Those of the higher castes take their cooks with them. 
They bring their own water on board and never come to 
the general tables. When the Rajah of Jaipur went to 
England some years ago he carried a full retinue of serv¬ 
ants and wherever he went set up his special kitchen, 
which could be entered by none but his own people. 

No one knows the origin of caste, which dates far back 
in the dawn of Hindu history. One of the native words 
for caste is “ varna,” meaning colours, and some people 
think the lines were drawn so as to prevent the Aryans 
from mingling their blood with that of the darker peoples 
whom they conquered in Hindustan. Thus, they say, 
caste was founded on somewhat the same feeling as that 


195 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


which results in the “Jim Crow” cars of our South. Of 
the four main castes, the two upper ones comprised the 
conquerors, the third was composed of the people who sub¬ 
mitted without a fight, while the fourth was made up of 
those who resisted and were enslaved by the victors. It 
is evident that there has been much mixing of races in 
India, but perhaps caste was invented to keep intermar¬ 
riage from going any farther. However that may be, the 
people of the northwest of Hindustan are much lighter 
than those of the southeast, where the prevailing colour is 
a dull, sooty black. 

Not only are caste distinctions firmly implanted in the 
social system of Hindustan, but they are rooted in the 
Hindu religion itself as taught by the Brahmans, or priest 
class. Almost as sacred as the Vedas themselves is the 
code of Manu, which lays down the laws and customs for 
the Hindus and which is generally obeyed to-day. This 
code defines the four great castes that have existed in 
India for centuries. They are at the foundation of the 
nearly two thousand castes and the numerous sub-castes 
of to-day. The first and highest caste is that of the 
Brahmans, supposed to have sprung originally from the 
head of Brahma himself. They are enjoined to study, 
teach, and receive alms. They are bound by very strict 
rules and may not touch non-Brahmans or eat food pre¬ 
pared by them. In theory they are all priests, but act¬ 
ually a large proportion of the twenty million Brahmans 
in India now earn their livings as teachers, clerks, lawyers, 
and in other professions. They almost never work with 
their hands. Whatever their occupation, they are by 
right of birth the lords of creation. They bless, curse, 
teach, and govern the other Hindu castes. They are the 
196 


THE SLAVES OF CASTE 


authority upon all matters, religious and social, and are 
the brains of the Hindus. They hold their position on ac¬ 
count of the reverence and sanctity with which they are 
regarded, and object to our civilization because they see in 
it the ruin of caste and the loss of their own choice posi¬ 
tion at the top of the heap. 

The second great class was the warriors. This class, 
which has largely lost its prominence under British rule, is 
supposed to have come from the arms of Brahma. Theo¬ 
retically, most of the Hindu rajahs belong to this caste, 
though, as a matter of fact, some of them are of the third 
class, which formed the agricultural part of the old popula¬ 
tion. This issued from the belly and thighs of Brahma. 
The fourth and last class was the Sudra, sprung from the 
feet of Brahma, and destined to serve the higher castes. 
A large share of the people of India to-day belong in this 
caste, which is composed of tradesmen and artisans, many 
of whom have grown wealthy. 

These are still the four main castes among the two 
hundred and seventeen million Hindus, but they are so 
divided and sub-divided that no Westerner could ever 
untangle their mazes. And then beneath all these castes 
and sub-castes are the pariahs, or untouchables. Even 
they are divided into castes of occupation, such as the 
sweepers, the cobblers, the cow skinners, the corpse 
bearers, and the scavengers, who are lowest of all. The 
untouchables are sometimes called panchamas, or fifth- 
caste people. 

An untouchable sweeps my room and is so humble and 
servile that he does not lift his eyes as he creeps about 
with his dusting. If even by accident he should touch 
the person of my bearer, the latter would have to go 
197 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


through elaborate rites of purification. When my serv¬ 
ant pays his helper he throws the money on the floor and 
the pariah picks it up. It would pollute my man to pass 
anything from his hand direct to the sweeper’s. In the 
same way when buying things from a Hindu merchant I 
always put the money down for him to pick up, for to him 
I am an untouchable. 

In the Hindu villages the pariahs live by themselves. 
They may not use the well of the people of caste and 
sometimes have to walk miles to get water. They are not 
permitted to enter the houses of the higher classes; in 
some provinces they may not even walk along the public 
streets. They may not enter the temples, and their children 
are either not admitted to the ordinary schools, or must sit 
apart from the other pupils. In some parts of India a 
Brahman will not allow an eater of beef to approach nearer 
than sixty-four feet, while members of the groups of 
masons, carpenters, and leather-workers will contaminate 
him if they draw nearer than twenty-four feet. There 
are cases where untouchables summoned to court have 
had to sit several hundred feet down the road so as not to 
pollute the Brahman awyers and justices. 

It is next to impossible for a stranger to understand how 
the Hindus regard caste matters. Each accepts his 
position in society as a religious dispensation, and few 
hope to alter it. All castes are hereditary. The son of a 
Brahman is bound to be a Brahman, and the son of a 
Sudra, a Sudra. The poorest Brahman always considers 
himself superior, and he would spurn a millionaire of any 
class lower than his own. What is more, the millionaire 
would stay spurned. I was talking the other day with one 
of the chief officers of the British army in India. Said he: 

198 



It is a part of the Hindu religion to despise spirituous liquors, but the 
pariahs, or men without caste, gather juice from the tops of the toddy 
palm, from which they make an intoxicating fermented drink. 






As an orthodox Hindu will not put on leather footwear, the merchants 
in the shoemakers’ bazaars sell mostly wooden sandals, held on the foot 
by a knobbed peg between the toes. 



No Hindu of caste will touch the soiled clothes of another, so in 
India your laundry goes to washermen of about the lowest grade of un¬ 
touchables, and comes back little the better for the experience. 








THE SLAVES OF CASTE 


“No matter how wealthy or how powerful a native be¬ 
comes, he cannot rise above his caste. Take the Ma¬ 
harajah of Gwalior. He is one of the richest of the native 
rulers, and vast sums flow into his coffers. He has a big 
territory and several million subjects to govern. Never¬ 
theless, the poorest Brahman among them would not give 
him his daughter in marriage/' 

The rules of caste are most rigid as to marriage, espe¬ 
cially among the Brahmans. The Brahman thinks he con¬ 
descends if he looks upon a woman of a caste below his. 
Marriages are made only in the caste and in the divis¬ 
ions of the caste to which one belongs. 

It is easy to see that democracy could never flourish 
in a country in which two thirds of the population are di¬ 
vided into such iron-bound classifications as these. But 
as the ideals of western civilization have made their way 
in India the rigidity of caste has begun to yield. The 
presence of the British, the education of Indian youths 
abroad, the new industrial order, and other innovations 
are weakening the power of the Brahmans. I have 
spoken of how railroad travel is helping to break down 
caste. Hindu soldiers who crossed the “ Black Water," 
as the orthodox call the ocean, to fight in the World War 
came back with new ideas about caste. Two societies 
are especially active in attacking caste and trying to 
improve the lot of the untouchables. One of these anti¬ 
caste organizations is the Brahmo Samaj, or Society of the 
One God, which is doing much to raise the standards of 
the Hindu religion and the status of the pariahs. 

The Arya Samaj, another religious organization, foun¬ 
ded about fifty years ago, numbers some four hundred and 
fifty thousand followers. One of its leaders, Lajpat Rai, 
199 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


declared that the Arya Samaj repudiates caste by birth 
and considers pernicious and harmful the artificial barriers 
which caste has created in India to divide men from their 
fellow men. Their creed is “The fatherhood of God, 
the brotherhood of man, equality of the sexes, and justice 
and fair play between men and men and nation and na¬ 
tion. 

The Arya Samaj has, I understand, special ceremonies 
for raising whole groups of untouchables to the Sudra, or 
lowest caste. The candidates for promotion live on milk 
alone for three days, and then at a public meeting they 
make a profession of their faith in the principles of the sect. 
In three years the society gave caste to a group of ten 
thousand untouchables in the territory of the Maharajah 
of Kashmir. In another district it raised a group of 
thirty-six thousand. 

The Servants of India Society, formed in 1905 “to train 
national missionaries for the service of India”, has among 
its leaders university men of high attainments and their 
work is telling for the good of the country. Among other 
activities this society is organizing the Boy Scout move¬ 
ment and encouraging the formation of cooperative socie¬ 
ties to rescue the oppressed classes from the hands of 
the loan sharks. In their schools and churches the Chris¬ 
tian missionaries have also done a wonderful work among 
the untouchables, who form the vast majority of the five 
million Christian converts of India. 

The late Gaekwar of Baroda, one of the most progressive 
of all the native rulers, stood out conspicuously for the 
rights of the pariahs. He built separate schoolhouses for 
their children and set up schools for training untouchables 
to be teachers. He even invited students of these lowest 


200 


THE SLAVES OF CASTE 


classes to receptions at his palace. Gandhi, while main¬ 
taining that castes are necessary and right, says un- 
touchability is “not a sanction of religion, but a device of 
Satan” and “a crime against humanity.” 

The Brahmans themselves have modified certain caste 
rules as to food and drink. For instance, it is now pos¬ 
sible to take patent medicines and drink soda water with¬ 
out losing one’s soul. A man is not damned if he buys ice 
made by a foreigner, and he can eat soda crackers without 
being polluted. Our canned goods, especially California 
fruits, are becoming more and more popular here in India, 
where they seem to satisfy a definite need. I have been 
told that if our American canners would label their goods 
for India with the words: “No human hand has touched 
the contents” and advertise their fruits in this way, they 
would have a much greater sale among the Hindus. 

With improved wages the untouchables themselves are 
beginning to defy the Brahmans here and there, and in the 
industrial centres caste feeling is not nearly so strong as 
it once was. There is a saying that “ In Bombay there is 
no caste.” The other day I heard of a Brahman who was 
learning the plumber’s trade. When asked how that 
could be, since touching filth was against all his caste 
rules, he laughed and said that whereas his college-bred 
brother was getting less than fourteen dollars a month, he 
himself could make forty dollars as a journeyman plumber 
and later on, earn one hundred dollars as a foreman. Not 
long ago a Hindu graduate from one of our American 
universities wrote his parents that when he returned to 
India he expected to set up a steam laundry. His high- 
caste father and mother were greatly distressed at the 
thought of their son’s going into the trade of one of the 


201 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


lowest of all the social grades in India, that of the washer¬ 
man. They offered him a large sum of money if he would 
change his mind and not bring this terrible disgrace upon 
the family. High-caste young men have been seen at 
national congresses of Hindus carrying on their heads and 
shoulders the trunks and bags of low-caste delegates. 
In India this is nothing short of a social revolution. 

Will caste ever be wiped out? Recently I talked in the 
same day to two intelligent and thoughtful men, both of 
whom had lived in India for some years. When I put this 
question to the first, he replied: "Caste is interwoven with 
the social fabric of the country. It will never disappear 
from India.” 

But the second man said "Yes”, and turning to my 
young secretary added: "and in your lifetime.” 


202 


CHAPTER XXIII 


THE HUNGRY FARMERS OF HINDUSTAN 

I HAVE seen the farmers of every land, but I know of 
no place where they work so hard and get so little as 
in India. This is primarily an agricultural country. 
Three out of every four of its people get their living 
directly from the soil. Compare this with England, 
where out of every one hundred workers fifty-eight 
are engaged in industrial pursuits, fourteen in domestic 
service, thirteen in trade, and only eight in agriculture. 

The wages and profits of these Indian farmers are 
low beyond American conception. Farm servants and 
field labourers, of whom there are some forty-one millions, 
are often paid in kind. Where money is used, wages of 
twelve cents a day are considered high. In the Bombay 
Presidency the annual per-capita income in the rural dis¬ 
tricts is twenty-five dollars; but where the soil is shallow 
and poor it is only eleven; whereas the cost of the barest 
necessities comes to about fourteen. The farmers who 
own their lands are mortgaged up to their eyes, and the 
money lenders and tax collectors leave them but little 
peace. 

The home of the average peasant is not as good as an 
American cowshed. It is often a windowless mud hut 
from ten to fifteen feet square, with a thatched roof and a 
floor plastered with cow dung. The furniture usually 
consists of a rope bed and a few pots and pans. There is 
203 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 

seldom more than one room, in which the whole family 
must accommodate itself as it can. Meals are cooked over 
a fireplace made of three or four bricks set up on end and 
cow dung is used for fuel. This manure is picked up by 
the women and girls, who follow the cattle. They carry 
the droppings to their houses and mix them with dirt, 
patting them into shape with their bare hands, and then 
plastering the cakes on the walls of the huts to dry. In 
times past India destroyed her forests recklessly, so that 
now she must use this valuable fertilizer for fuel. 

Most of the farmers live in villages. There are in 
India some seven hundred and fifty thousand hamlets 
with an average of less than four hundred inhabitants. 
In riding across the country I have seen the villages 
everywhere dotting the landscape. They are built along 
mud roads and have none of the surroundings or con¬ 
veniences of American towns. There are no big school- 
houses or churches, no street lamps, no gutters, and no 
sidewalks. There is an absence of paint and whitewash. 

The peasants of India have reduced feeding to an art in 
doing without. They eat barely enough to keep them 
alive, their diet being chiefly rice, wheat, beans, millet, and 
coarse grains, with chili peppers and other condiments. 
They seldom have meat, for many of them would as soon 
think of chewing their grandparents as of eating beef¬ 
steak. For fats they use a melted butter called ghee. 
Ordinary butter would not keep in the hot climate of 
India, where ice is, of course, to be had only in the large 
centres and where salt is expensive because it is heavily 
taxed. So the Indians boil their butter in a pot with a 
little water. The casein, which causes the fat to become 
rancid, is separated from the butter, which floats on top 
204 


THE HUNGRY FARMERS OF HINDUSTAN 


and can be poured off. If this is carefully done, the fat 
will keep for a long time without spoiling. Ghee is little 
used in Burma, but is universally eaten in Hindustan, where 
not much butter or butter substitute is imported because 
of the Hindus' fear of contamination. Ghee, by the way, 
contributes one of the characteristic smells to the cities of 
India. Much of the milk consumed comes from buffaloes, 
which give more than twice as much as the average 
cow. The poorer people depend largely on goats for their 
milk. 

The Indian farmer rises at daybreak and takes a bit of 
cold food to the field, where at noon his wife may bring 
him a hot meal. At home the people have no tables but 
set their bowls on the floor. If they are rich they have 
several large dishes; if poor, one or two. All eat with their 
fingers, and the men always help themselves first. 

It is a well-to-do family that has two full meals a day. 

I am told that not one third of the natives can afford to 
eat rice, and that the majority live on flour made of coarse 
grains, which they cook up into unleavened cakes called 
chupattis. 

One of the reasons for the poverty of the Hindus is their 
belief in the sacredness of animals. Because of this, use¬ 
less, half-dead cows, buffaloes, and other stock, as well as 
the snakes, vermin, and crop-destroying birds and insects, 
are a constant drain and menace. The man who would 
sell his crippled ox to the butcher would incur a life-long 
reproach from his neighbours and be heavily fined by his 
caste. The flea-borne pestilence, bubonic plague, carries 
off about a million people every year. Poisonous snakes 
cause the death of something like twenty-five thousand 
annually. Sometimes one sees a Hindu going along the 
205 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


road with some rats caught in a wire trap. After he gets 
away from his own small plot he will turn them out. He 
must not kill them, but it is considered all right for him to 
let them go onto someone else’s land. 

Another burden upon the Hindu peasant is the heavy 
expense for funerals and weddings. When his daughter 
is married off she must be given a dowry as well as a ban¬ 
quet. Neither can he escape the funeral feast on the death 
of an adult member of his immediate family. Such de¬ 
mands send him to the money-lender, who exacts the pound 
of flesh without mercy. 

Except on the farms of the wealthy and the government 
experiment stations, agricultural machinery is practi¬ 
cally never used. Rice is transplanted by hand in fields 
oftentimes irrigated after the most primitive fashion. 
The ripened grain is harvested with a hand sickle and 
threshed out by the feet of oxen. The cultivation of five 
acres gives a man almost more than he can do. 

Most of all, the Indian farmer is at the mercy of the 
winds. In Burma, the rice crop is assured year in and 
year out, but in the greater part of India food depends on 
the rains, brought by the monsoon that usually begins to 
blow over India in June. The moisture-laden air cur¬ 
rents from the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea continue 
to circulate over the country until the middle or end of 
September, and during this period there are more or less 
general, though not continuous, rains. But there are all 
kinds of variations from the normal. Sometimes the 
rains delay in starting, sometimes they break off for a 
long time in July or August. In any part of the country 
they may cease before the middle of September. If any 
of these things happen, millions of acres of crops may 
206 



With their crude ploughs the farmers of India can only scratch the sur¬ 
face of the ground, yet the soil is so fertile that the country produces 
all its own food except sugar. 






Great hoards of wealth such as that which helped to put up the palace 
of the native ruler of Udaipur have been gathered through the centuries 
by exploiting the toil of the Indian peasant. 





















THE HUNGRY FARMERS OF HINDUSTAN 


wither and die, and as the farm population lives almost 
entirely from hand to mouth, famine results. 

Famines have been the bane of India for centuries. 
The people live on so narrow a margin that they have no 
reserve vitality, and when their food is cut down they drop 
off like flies. One famine in Bengal caused the death of 
ten millions, and about a century ago eight millions starved 
in one province. During the famine in 1896 more than one 
million rations a day were issued by the British govern¬ 
ment, notwithstanding which almost a million people died 
of disease or starvation. 

Four years later there was a famine affecting nearly half 
a million square miles with a population of some sixty 
millions. There was no fodder, the cattle died by thou¬ 
sands, and there was a terrible scarcity of water. At 
that time four and a half million people had to be sup¬ 
ported by the state. While deaths from actual starvation 
were not numerous, cholera and an epidemic of malaria 
snuffed out a million lives in the famine-stricken area. 

Yet when the rains failed over an even greater area in 
1918, not more than six hundred thousand persons needed 
public assistance. This was largely because by that time 
machinery for combating the effects of drought and 
famine had been improved. Irrigation, highways, and 
railroads have done much. Nowadays with improved 
transportation and organized relief work an Indian 
famine seldom means actual starvation. The food can 
be had, but the trouble is that so many of the people are 
too poor to buy it. As a rule, instead of giving food in a 
famine-stricken district, the government now starts public 
works, such as road building and irrigation projects, to give 
employment and wages to the people. It also buys up 
207 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 

grain and sells it at a price that the natives can afford to 

pay. 

In a country like India irrigation is a vital need. The 
Indian Irrigation Commission, after two years’ investiga¬ 
tion, reported that between the region with sufficient an¬ 
nual rainfall and that in which no agriculture at all is 
possible without irrigation, there lies a tract of nearly a 
million square miles which, unirrigated, cannot be con¬ 
sidered secure against the uncertainty of the seasons and 
the scourge of famine. Irrigation is accomplished in vari¬ 
ous ways. Much land is watered by the cultivators them¬ 
selves without the aid of the government. Almost every 
known system of raising water from wells is in use, from the 
primitive method of lifting it by hand to power pumping. 

The total irrigated area in British India is now a little 
more than twenty-seven million acres, about two thirds of 
which is served by irrigation canals and other works in¬ 
stalled by the government. Many large irrigation proj¬ 
ects are in prospect or now under way. 

From my talks with the agents of both the imperial and 
the provincial departments of agriculture, I am convinced 
that the British are alive to the needs of the farmers of 
India and are doing a great deal to improve their condition. 
For instance, when I talked with the Secretary of the 
Agriculture Department of India, he told me that every 
province has now its agricultural schools. Each is 
making a study of the conditions peculiar to its region, 
and doing what it can to improve them. 

“Our modern agricultural movement,” said the Secre¬ 
tary, “was practically begun by one of your millionaires, 
Flenry Phipps, of Pittsburgh. When he came out to Cal¬ 
cutta he spent some time with his friend, Lord Curzon, 
208 


THE HUNGRY FARMERS OF HINDUSTAN 


then Viceroy of India. During his visit he became inter¬ 
ested in the condition of the farmers of this country. He 
believed that the famines could be prevented to a great 
extent by the improvement of our farming methods, and 
he gave one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to start 
an agricultural school and farm at Pusa, in Bengal. Ex¬ 
perts were hired and an up-to-date agricultural college 
was established. Additions have been made to the fund 
originally given by Mr. Phipps, until we have expended 
something like seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars 
in building up the institution. To-day it ranks with the 
best of its kind in the world. 

“One of the biggest things we are doing is the work for 
the betterment of the quality and yield of our cotton crop,” 
continued this official. “Our farmers find that, in the 
long run, cotton is more profitable than any other crop. 
India stands second only to the United States among the 
world's cotton-producing countries, but our product is 
shorter in staple, poorer in spinning value, and smaller 
in yield per acre than is yours. We are trying to improve 
the staple by seed selection and by cross fertilization, but 
it is difficult to persuade the farmers to make such ex¬ 
periments. Still, last year we distributed sufficient im¬ 
proved cotton seed for planting three hundred thousand 
acres. We have acclimated your long-staple Sea Island 
cotton and give out thousands of pounds of the seed every 
year. At present we have in all India something like 
thirty-six thousand square miles under cotton. In a 
recent year the yield was ninety-eight pounds per acre, 
but this is not impressive compared to your average in 
the United States, which, I understand, sometimes goes 
beyond two hundred pounds to the acre." 

209 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


“How about your competition with us?” I inquired. 

“That has already reached considerable proportions 
and I think is likely to grow,” was the answer. “ For in¬ 
stance, we have doubled our yield in the past thirty years, 
whereas in the United States I believe there is now a dis¬ 
tinct tendency toward a decreased cotton crop. The 
greater part of the several million bales we export goes to 
Japan. She makes our cheap cotton into cloth and ships 
it back to us at a price that is driving from our mar¬ 
kets the product of the British mills, which is made from 
American cotton. The boll weevil and the high costs of 
land, labour, and fertilizer in the United States have helped 
to raise the price of American raw cotton until goods manu¬ 
factured of it are beyond the reach of the lower classes of 
India and China. So, altogether, I should say that within 
the next ten years our cotton will be a serious competitor 
of yours.” 

“Tell me something about your wheat crop,” I said. 

“As you know, rice is our chief cereal crop,” said the 
Secretary. “Wheat comes next. Since Canada ran 
ahead of us, India takes fourth place among the world’s 
wheat producers. Ordinarily, we have a surplus for 
export, but in bad years we must import wheat. We sow 
in October and harvest in March and April, so that our 
crop has the advantage of appearing on the European 
market in the spring, when wheat from other sources is 
scarce. 

“Our agricultural stations are now doing all they can 
to introduce modern machinery. They encourage the use 
of iron ploughs and of reapers and threshers. They show 
the wheat farmers how to use such machines and stage 
competitive demonstrations on the part of the dealers in 


210 


THE HUNGRY FARMERS OF HINDUSTAN 


the different makes. But it is difficult to get the people 
to take up any new methods or try out new seeds. For one 
thing, their holdings are generally too small to make the 
use of much machinery profitable, even if they could 
afford to buy it. 

“ Another crop we are trying to stimulate is sugar cane/’ 
continued the Secretary. “You know that it is thought 
that this plant is native to India, where it has been grown 
for hundreds of years. Yet the methods of cultivation and 
juice extraction are so poor that India does not now pro¬ 
duce enough for her needs. Indeed, sugar is the only agri¬ 
cultural product in which the balance of trade is decidedly 
against the country. The growers usually raise what they 
need for home consumption, press out the juice in the 
crudest kind of mills, and boil it down without removing 
the molasses. There is a strong prejudice among the 
orthodox Hindus against sugar refined by means of 
animal charcoal. Nevertheless, the Sugar Bureau at 
Pusa is steadily expanding its activities and has already 
accomplished something in the way of bettering sugar 
culture and manufacture/' 

“What are you doing to improve your live stock?" I 
asked. 

“We have breeding establishments connected with some 
of the agricultural stations, and there is a breeding farm 
at Pusa. Many of the provincial governments hold agri¬ 
cultural shows, where prizes are given for the best-bred 
animals, and there are dairy farms under government 
supervision." 

“Are the sacred cows of India good milkers?" 

“Not as a rule," was the reply. “One of our best milk 
breeds comes from the Gir hills and others are from Sind, 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


where the Mohammedans drive them in herds from one 
jungle pasture to another. The Punjab has good dairy 
cows, but those of Bengal are poor.” 

Our conversation next turned to the efforts of China to 
abolish the use of opium, and the agreement between the 
Chinese and the British government to shut off the sup¬ 
ply from India. I asked how this had affected poppy 
growing here. 

“When China ceased buying our opium/’ he answered, 
“many of our farmers stopped planting the poppies. The 
agreement with China has meant the sacrifice of a revenue 
of twenty million dollars a year. 

“The amount of land now under poppy cultivation in 
British India is comparatively small. Except in the na¬ 
tive states, the government decides what fields may be 
planted in poppies and restricts these to certain sections 
of Bengal and the United Provinces. The cultivators 
receive advances to enable them to prepare the ground 
and raise the plants, but are bound to sell their whole 
crop to the government.” 

“Is much opium consumed in India?” I asked. 

“In proportion to the population, no,” was the answer. 
“And consumption is decreasing. People generally ap¬ 
pear to misunderstand the position of the government in 
this matter of the control of the opium traffic. The main 
facts are these: For many centuries before the British 
came the people of India had had the habit of taking small 
quantities of opium. Furthermore, opium has for hun¬ 
dreds of years been used on ceremonial occasions, being 
passed around as a refreshment somewhat as we offer 
cigarettes to guests. In my opinion, the government 
would have made a mistake to lay violent hands on a 


212 


THE HUNGRY FARMERS OF HINDUSTAN 


custom so long established. Opium addicts are rare in 
this country, and the drug evidently does not produce the 
same effect upon Indians as upon the Chinese, or else the 
former exercise far more self-control in its use. The 
government’s policy is to control the trade in such a way 
as to insure effective regulation and keep the business 
from falling into the wrong hands. Owing to its measures 
the prices have steadily risen and consumption and pro¬ 
duction have steadily declined.” 


213 


CHAPTER XXIV 


DELHI 

I AM at Delhi, official seat of the government of British 
India since 1912, stronghold of the Mohammedan 
conquerors for six centuries, and long before the 
coming of the followers of the Prophet the capital 
city of peoples whose story is shrouded in the mists of 
tradition. The eighth Delhi is now going up. This is 
the so-called New Delhi, which is being built on the site 
of the ancient city to give proper housing and prestige to 
His Majesty’s government in India. 

It is estimated that the new capital will cost not less 
than forty millions of dollars. Included in the elaborate 
plans are specifications for an enormous Government 
House for the Viceroy and his staff, and an equally im¬ 
posing Secretariat. Between the Secretariat and Govern¬ 
ment House is a raised causeway leading into the 
Viceroy’s Court, an open space nearly a quarter of a mile 
long filled with grass, trees, and fountains. The new 
Parliament Building will have assembly halls for the 
Chamber of Princes, the Council of State, and the Indian 
Legislature, which holds its winter session in Delhi. While 
all these ambitious plans are being executed, the Viceroy 
and other officials occupy a temporary city, gradually 
moving into the new buildings as they are completed. 
For some eight months of the year the Viceroy and his 
214 



In the thirsty land of Hindustan, where agriculture is largely depend¬ 
ent on irrigation and water is precious, wells assume an enormous impor¬ 
tance. This one, with its modern lifting contrivance, was presented to 
a village of Orissa by an American woman. 





So often has Delhi been sieged and sacked that the new capital being 
built for the British Viceroy and his government is the eighth city to be 
raised on this site. Meantime, life in the native quarters is that of cen¬ 
turies past. 



Since Shah Jehan set them there nearly three hundred years ago, 
the elephants at the Delhi Gate to the Mogul fort and palace have watched 
conquering Persians, Afghans, and Britishers pass in triumph between 
them. 
























DELHI 


staff are at Simla, the summer capital, where the summer 
sessions of the Legislature are held. 

Between the temporary capital and the new western 
metropolis rising on the plain is the old Delhi, scene of the 
six centuries of Moslem rule in India, and in many re¬ 
spects but little changed since the days of the Moguls. 

To get an idea of the native Delhi of to-day, throw away 
all your preconceived notions of what you thought it 
would be like; jumble together a dozen different types of 
men and women; put them in the queerest costumes that 
you can imagine; and let the brightest of colours be con¬ 
trasted with the yellowest, the brownest, and the blackest 
of skins. Here are the long-haired, savage-looking men of 
Kabul, come down with their horses and camels from 
Afghanistan. Here are sleek Hindus dressed in round 
caps and long white gowns, with rich shawls of Kashmir 
thrown about their shoulders. Here are Moslems in 
turbans and tall Sikhs in soldiers’ uniforms, their long 
hair gathered up beneath their enormous coloured head- 
cloths. All of these and a hundred other specimens of 
humanity crowd along the great business thoroughfare of 
Chandni Chauk and jostle each other on the narrow side 
streets. 

The Chandni Chauk is one of the famous bazaar streets 
of India. It is one hundred feet wide, and has a strip of 
grass and a row of trees through its centre, and is lined 
on both sides with two-story houses. Each house has a 
balcony, upon which at evening gather the Hindu families, 
the women with their heads covered so that only an eye 
can be seen, and the children with almost nothing on. 
The first floors of these houses, which have no sidewalks in 
front of them, are taken up with little box-like stalls in 
215 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


each of which squats a merchant. The customers sit on 
the ledges in front of the cubbyholes and haggle for an 
hour over every purchase. 

Here in the dirtiest and most squalid of quarters half- 
naked men are working gold and silver into long 
threads with such skill that two shillings' worth of silver 
may be drawn out to eight hundred yards of fine wire. 
In the next pig-pen establishment these threads are being 
stitched into rich pieces of silk of the most delicate hues. 
In another cell is a jeweller; like other great-great- 
grandsons of those who built the Delhi of the Moguls and 
inlaid precious stones in the decorations of their gorgeous 
palaces, he now works to catch the fancy of European and 
American tourists. 

The Delhi of to-day moves on amid the grand monu¬ 
ments of its past. It was some eight hundred years ago 
that the place was first conquered by the Moslem hordes 
from beyond the northern barrier of mountains. Within 
eleven miles of the present city a marvellous structure com¬ 
memorates the victor, Kutb-ud-din Aibak, who came down 
into India at the end of the twelfth century. This 
monument, known as the Kutab Minar, is supposed to be 
the most perfect tower in the world and is one of the seven 
architectural wonders of India. The base is forty-seven 
feet in diameter and the tower rises to a height of two 
hundred and forty feet. It is built in five stories of fluted 
sandstone and white marble and its colouring shades from 
the purplish red of the base through the pale pink of the 
second story to the white marble of the summit. 

This part of India is filled with tombs, some of 
which cost millions of dollars. At Sikandra I saw the 
grave of the Mogul Emperor Akbar, over which stands a 
216 


DELHI 


temple of marble and sandstone. Akbar, whose grand¬ 
father, Baber, founded the Mogul Empire in 1526, was a 
contemporary of Shakespeare, Bacon, and Queen Eliza¬ 
beth, and he established a government in many respects 
the peer of any of that day. He had courts, military and 
police departments, and a regular system of taxation, 
taking one third of the products from the land every 
year. About him he gathered poets and literary men 
just as did Queen Elizabeth on the other side of the 
world. His grandson was Shah Jehan, who built the Taj 
Mahal at Agra, besides building most of the Delhi of the 
Grand Moguls. 

I have spent some time going about from one to another 
of the splendid structures within the old fort here. There 
are two fine gates through its walls of red sandstone. The 
Delhi Gate, built by Shah Jehan, is flanked by stone ele¬ 
phants, the beasts of royalty. The Lahore Gate, erected 
by Shah Jehan's son, has a grand archway and its vaulted 
cavern-like entrance leads through the walls to an inner 
gateway. It has been called “the noblest entrance to 
any palace/' Its beauty was marred with bloodshed 
when, in the mutiny of the native troops in 1857, the 
British commissioner of the district was killed here. 

Inside the walls of the fort is a big grassy space on which 
stand the halls of audience, the women's apartments, the 
royal baths, the mosques, and all the marble and other 
stone buildings that made up the magnificent court of the 
Grand Moguls. 

Most wonderful of all and most representative of the 
splendour of these Moslem emperors of India is the 
Diwan-i-Khas, the hall of special audience. The Grand 
Moguls dispensed justice from a marble throne in the 
217 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


larger hall of public audience, but only ministers of state 
and other important personages were admitted to the 
Diwan-i-Khas. This room is of noble proportions, being 
ninety by sixty-seven feet, and its walls are of white 
marble inlaid with semi-precious stones. In Shah Jehan’s 
time the ceiling was covered with silver, but this was 
later stripped off and carried away. Lord Curzon put up 
a wooden imitation of the original ceiling, which the 
white ants have damaged considerably. 

As I stood in this audience hall my Hindu guide, who, 
by the way, is very conceited, pointed to a Persian in¬ 
scription upon the wall, giving its translation: 

If there is a paradise on earth, 

It is this! It is this! It is this! 

and as he concluded he said: "When Her Highness the 
Vicereine was here I showed her through this room and 
explained all its beauties. I read her the inscription and 
at the end she remarked: 

"Yes, and if there is a good guide in India you are he! 
You are he! You are he!” 

Perhaps the boy told the truth, but he is such an ac¬ 
complished liar upon all other subjects that I doubt it. 

At the end of the hall the emperors sat in state upon the 
Peacock Throne, made for Shah Jehan at a cost of thirty 
million dollars. It was a platform of solid gold, six feet 
long by four feet broad, resting on six massive feet of gold 
inlaid with rubies, emeralds, and diamonds. Over it was 
a golden canopy fringed with pearls and supported by 
twelve pillars encrusted with gems. At the back were 
the figures of two peacocks with their tails spread and so 
inlaid with sapphires, rubies, pearls, emeralds, and other 
218 


DELHI 


jewels as to display all the gorgeous colours of a real 
peacock. Between the two great birds was a life-size 
image of a parrot, said to have been carved from a single 
emerald. The eyes of one of the peacocks were formed of 
two immense diamonds, one of which was the Koh-i-nur, 
or “mountain of light/’ which is now among the crown 
jewels of England. The throne itself was broken up by 
Nadir Shah, the Persian, who overthrew the Mogul em¬ 
peror in 1739 and massacred many of the people of Delhi. 
The pieces of the throne carried away by Nadir after his 
two-months’ occupation of the capital were patched to¬ 
gether to make the present Peacock Throne of Persia. 

Not far from the walls of the fort is another monument 
to the genius of the great Shah Jehan. This is the Jumma 
Musjid, one of the biggest mosques in the world. It is 
situated here on the banks of the Jumna on a plateau of 
rock between the fort and the city. It was built in 1644 
and five thousand workmen laboured upon it, laying up, 
day by day, its white marble and red sandstone. Its 
three gateways are approached by grand flights of stairs of 
forty steps each. Once the great doors of the main gate¬ 
way swung back for none save the Mogul emperor himself; 
nowadays they are opened only for the chief Commis¬ 
sioner of Delhi or the Viceroy of India. 

There is room in the courtyard of the Jumma Musjid 
for ten thousand worshippers. In its centre is a great 
fountain where they wash before praying, and there are 
cloisters on its three sides. 

The floor of the mosque itself is divided into kneeling 
places of white marble bordered with black. Each is 
large enough to accommodate one man upon his knees 
with sufficient space in front for him to bow his head to the 
219 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


stone. All point toward Mecca, and as I walked through 
the building I saw many praying. In the alcoves worship¬ 
pers were reading their Korans, and off at one side sat a 
crowd of women shrouded in white veils. 

A priest pointed out to me the beauties of the building, 
translating the texts of the Koran inlaid here and there. 
He took me to the pulpit which is cut out of a single block 
of marble and as a special favour showed me the greatest 
treasure possessed by the mosque. This is kept in a vault 
of stone behind numerous doors guarded by two gray- 
bearded followers of the Prophet. At the direction of the 
high priest these doors were opened. My curiosity rose 
as key after key was turned, and when at last I was shown 
a casket covered with glass I expected to see a great diamond 
or some collection of rubies and pearls. I looked in and 
saw nothing at all until my Mohammedan guide pointed 
to a single rough, red, wiry hair in the centre. The hair 
was about two inches long and fastened by glue to the 
casket so that it stood straight up. I was told that it was 
a real hair from the moustache of Mohammed and that its 
possession made the mosque especially holy. 

We are accustomed to look upon India as a land of the 
Hindus. It is; yet it has one Mohammedan for every 
three Hindus, and in muscle and in independence of spirit 
the Moslem is frequently stronger than his caste-bound 
fellow countryman. He forms a big element in the unrest 
of to-day, and many people believe that if a civil war 
should break out, or if the British should leave India, he 
would ravage the land from one end to the other. 

The power of the Moslem rulers was broken long ago, 
but the followers of the Prophet are scattered all over 
India, and in some of the provinces they are in the major- 


220 


DELHI 


lty. The Mohammedans of India now number almost 
seventy millions, or about one fifth of the whole population. 
This is nearly one third of all the Mohammedans on earth, 
and more than there are in the five Moslem countries of 
Turkey, Morocco, Zanzibar, Persia, and Afghanistan put 
together. 

I find the Mohammedans here somewhat different from 
those of Egypt, Turkey, or Arabia. Their religion has 
been modified by contact with Hinduism. In some vil¬ 
lages, for example, there are followers of the Prophet who 
believe in witches, who employ the Hindu astrologists to fix 
lucky days for their marriages, and who pray to the Hindu 
gods to give them sons. In some of the Moslem sects of 
India there are castes similar to those of the Hindus. 

There are about as many sects among the Mohamme¬ 
dans as there are among Christians. The Prophet told 
his followers that after he died the religion would be 
divided and seventy-three parties would arise, only one of 
which would survive. There are more than seventy-three 
sects in the Mohammedan world of to-day. In India the 
four principal groups are the Sunnites, the Shiahs, the 
Wahabis, and the progressives. In the last named divi¬ 
sion are those Mohammedans who favour education and 
almost everything modern and are the leaders of po¬ 
litical unrest among the Moslems of India. 

The Sunnites and the Shiahs, who split off on the question 
of the Caliphate, or leadership of the Faithful, have long 
been the most prominent sects in the Mohammedan world. 
As to the Wahabis, they are the Unitarians of Moham¬ 
medanism. They claim to have the purest form of the 
religion and to found their faith not upon saints, but solely 
upon the Koran and the Prophet. They do not venerate 


221 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


the tomb of Mohammed, and when they captured Medina 
about a century ago they destroyed the relics and stripped 
off the ornaments of that sacred spot. 

There is another sect in India known as the Order of 
Assassins, which is found also in Arabia and Persia. It 
was instituted by a mahdi, or Moslem religious leader, 
who appeared at the time of the Crusades and who believed 
in political assassination as a cure for various social ills. 

Somewhat different from the other Mohammedans of In¬ 
dia are the Moplahs of the Malabar territory in the Presi¬ 
dency of Madras. They are people of mixed Arab and 
Indian descent, densely ignorant, and extremely fanatical. 
In that district there are about one million of the Moplahs 
to two million Hindus, and it is the latter who are the 
landlords. The Moplahs are kept in a constant ferment 
by the precarious tenure of lands from the Hindus, by 
the difficulty of acquiring sites for mosques and burial 
grounds, and by waves of religious agitation. During 
British rule there have been no less than thirty-five out¬ 
breaks of Moplahs possessed by a frenzy to kill as many 
non-Moslems as possible and thus win the martyr’s 
crown. Among the most terrible was that which occurred 
in August, 1921. Spurred on by Mohammedan ex¬ 
tremists who preached the right of the Turkish sultan to 
be the leader of the Moslem religion throughout the 
world, as well as by the Hindu enemies of the British, the 
Moplahs started another massacre. They killed such 
Europeans as could not escape, slaughtered many of the 
Hindus, especially landlords, desecrated temples, and 
forced thousands of Hindus to accept conversion to Islam 
or be put to death. Pillage, arson, and destruction 
reigned in the Malabar region until the British were able 


222 



At all hours the followers of the Prophet throng the stairway up to the 
Jumma Musjid—worshippers going and coming, friends exchanging the 
news of the city, and peddlers offering their wares. 












“The Moslem priest in charge of the Jumma Musjid showed me the 
chief treasure of the mosque, a single red hair of the Prophet carefully 
preserved in a glass casket.” 









DELHI 


to restore order. One effect of this bloody outbreak was 
to weaken the alliance between the Hindus and the Mos¬ 
lems in working for self-government in India. 

There is a big awakening among the Mohammedans in 
India. They are asking and getting their full share of the 
government positions open to natives. There seems to be 
a feeling among them that hitherto they have been 
slighted by both the British and their fellow countrymen 
of other religions. In a recent speech one of them com¬ 
pared their position to that of the toad in the schoolboy’s 
fable. Said the man to the boy: “Why are you throwing 
stones at it? It’s only a toad.” “Yes,” was the reply of 
the boy, “and I’ll teach it to be a toad.” 

The orator claimed that the other sects were trying to 
teach the Mohammedan to be a toad. He declared that 
this has been their policy for years, and concluded by 
saying that the Mohammedan toad, like that of Shake¬ 
speare, might yet have a “precious jewel in its head,” and 
it should be properly treated. 

The desire for education is spreading among the Mos¬ 
lems. Cheap translations of the sacred books are being 
circulated, and associations for the improvement and eleva¬ 
tion of the Mohammedans are being formed. The more 
progressive are now sending their boys to government 
schools, and many are patronizing the Mohammedan 
University at Aligarh. This institution is situated about 
seventy-eight miles from Delhi in one of the old cities of 
India. It was started about half a century ago as a modern 
university, and has a staff of English university graduates 
as teachers. But its trustees are Mohammedans and many 
of the professors are followers of the Prophet. Besides 
offering the usual university courses, it pays especial 
223 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


attention to Sanskrit, Arabic, and Persian, and the 
students are instructed in the Mohammedan religion. 
The Koran is read in the chapel and prayers are enforced, 
the boys bowing toward Mecca as they go through their 
devotions. 

The Aligarh students are devoted to athletics. Their 
cricket team is one of the best in India, and they strain 
and tug at football and go in for track sports. The uni¬ 
versity is largely independent of the government, and is 
supported principally by the contributions of Moham¬ 
medans. Although it represents the more progressive 
element, it has refused to support the political agitations 
of the extremists, and has remained loyal to the British 
government to which its support is of immense value. 


224 


CHAPTER XXV 

woman's greatest monument 

I T WAS at four o'clock this afternoon that a turbaned 
Hindu drove me from my hotel at Agra to the Taj 
Mahal. That hour is one of the best to view 
this wonderful monument, for then the sun hangs 
low in the heavens, striking the minarets at the cor¬ 
ners so that they cast long shadows upon the white 
stone floor. Its rays soften the marble of the Taj, 
changing it from dazzling white to the rich cream of old 
ivory, and the airy dome seems almost to float in the blue 
sky. Near sunset, too, the gardens about the Taj are 
alive with birds. There is a sweet singing in the trees, 
and peacocks come out and walk across the lawns and in 
and out through the tropical shrubbery. Indeed, the 
glorious Taj Mahal has a worthy setting. 

About the ten-acre garden is a wall of low buildings of 
dark red sandstone in perfect harmony with the entrance 
gate. Besides being the tomb of an emperor and his em¬ 
press, the Taj is a mosque to which Mohammedan pil¬ 
grims come from all parts of India, and these surrounding 
buildings are rest houses where they may stay overnight. 
The great entrance gate, built twenty-eight years after 
our Puritan forefathers landed on Plymouth Rock, is of 
red sandstone inlaid with inscriptions from the Koran done 
in white marble letters. It was in passing through this 
gate that I had my first view of the Taj. It stands at the 
225 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


end of a long row of fountains bordered with cypress 
trees, and is, I should judge, one thousand feet from the 
entrance. The dark green of the trees shuts out the view 
on each side, and you look down over the flashing waters 
at the great ivory monument outlined against the clearest 
blue sky that heaven ever gave to man. 

An the distance the Taj looks small. As you approach, 
it grows larger, but it is only when at last you mount the 
steps and stand upon its platform, or terrace, that you 
realize its size. The marble foundation upon which it is 
built covers more than two acres and at each corner there 
is a marble minaret as tall as a seven-story building. The 
tomb itself takes up almost three quarters of an acre and is 
topped by a central dome nearly two hundred feet high.^ 
The whole is built of the purest white marble, so sym¬ 
metrically joined that it seems to be carved out of one 
block. The dome appears to rest so lightly upon the 
structure beneath that it looks like a great silvery bubble. 

.. '" Words are powerless to describe the exquisite beauty of 
the Taj Mahal. Every point of view gives a different 
impression and each shows new perfections. Walk with 
me through the gardens. They are filled with plants of 
all kinds gathered from every corner of the world. Now 
you are in a forest of fir trees. The green is so thick that 
it shuts out all else. Take a step forward. You have a 
glimpse of the marble dome, but a tall palm has thrust its 
bushy head against it and its fanlike branches half hide, 
but add to its wonder. A pace farther and you are in a 
long avenue where the trees overhang so that you have 
only a glimpse of the sky at the end. A step to the right 
and you enter a rose garden, over which you can look at 
the minarets with the white bubble floating between. 

226 



The Kutab Minar, sometimes called the most perfect tower in the 
world, commemorates the victory of the first of the Moslem conquerors of 
Delhi. Five balconies and sculptured texts from the Koran girdle its 
fluted sandstone and marble. 








Among all the beautiful buildings on earth, the Taj Mahal has no rival 
in loveliness save its own reflection mirrored in the clear waters of the 
great pool before it. 








WOMAN’S GREATEST MONUMENT 


Upon one of the minarets stands a muezzin, his red shawl 
like a spot of blood upon the white marble. Over the 
garden floats the call that has sounded there for nearly 
three centuries: 

" Come to prayer, come to prayer! There is but one God, 
and Mohammed is the prophet of God. Come to prayer! 
Come to prayer!” 

Now climb again to the platform and take a closer look 
at the building. Was there ever such workmanship? 
Around the windows are scrolls and garlands of flowers 
carved in the marble and set with coloured stones. Some 
of the decorations have fifty different colours in a single 
setting, and before the Taj was robbed of some of its 
beauties many of the flowers contained a hundred or more. 
Princes and kings sent their offerings to help adorn the 
tomb of Shah Jehan’s beloved. 

7 '"’About the doorway are texts from the Koran inlaid in 
black marble upon the dazzling white. One of them reads: 

Saith Jesus, on whom be peace: “This world is a bridge. Pass thou 
over it, but build thy soul not upon it. The world is one hour. Give 
its minutes to thy prayers, for the rest is unseen.” 

But let us enter this beautiful building and stand be¬ 
neath its dome. We take off our hats and bend our heads 
low, but our Mohammedan guide removes his shoes, for 
the very floor upon which we are standing is holy ground. 
We are in both a church and a tomb. Moreover, we are 
in the most beautiful structure in all the world. The walls 
and floors are of the purest of marble. Upon the walls 
lilies and roses are so delicately carved that they look like 
frost flowers, while above these are bands of other flowers 


227 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 

made of jasper, malachite, amethyst, mother-of-pearl, 
coral, and lapis lazuli. 

Just beneath the centre of the dome is the screen 
surrounding the tombs of Shah Jehan, the emperor, and 
his wife, Mumtaz-i-Mahal, the “ Light of the Palace.” 
This screen is considered one of the most flawless pieces 
of decoration in existence. It is a mass of marble lace- 
work set between columns as exquisitely made as the 
most perfect of Florentine mosaics. The sarcophagi 
are inlaid with jade, lapis lazuli, and other semi-precious 
stones. 

Suspended by a golden chain just where it will shed 
its soft light over the tombs is a bronze lamp of rare 
design and workmanship, inlaid with silver and gold. 
This was the gift of Lord Curzon who presented it with a 
letter in which he said: 


I would beg that this lamp may always hang in the tomb as my last 
tribute of respect to the glories of Agra, which float like a vision of 
eternal beauty in my memory, and to the grave and potent religion 
which is professed by so many millions of our fellow-subjects in India. 


The lamp is on the pattern of one fashioned in Cairo 
more than two hundred years ago to hang in a sultan’s 
tomb. When Lord Curzon was trying to find someone 
to make it he was told that there were only two men in 
Egypt capable of such delicate workmanship. One of 
these was employed and it took him two years to do the 
job. 

The whole structure of the Taj Mahal is a marvel well 
fitting the description of Bishop Heber, who said that 
these Mohammedan artists “built like Titans and finished 
like jewellers,” adding that “it would be as easy to tell 
228 


WOMAN’S GREATEST MONUMENT 


how the birds sing or the lilacs smell as to describe the 
Taj.” I feel the same way and am reminded, too, of the 
Russian artist who remarked when he looked upon the 
building: "The Taj is like a lovely woman. Away from 
her, you may abuse her as you please, but the moment 
you come into her presence you submit to her fascination.” 

A famous traveller said in writing of the Taj: 

"I asked my wife at the close of our visit what she 
thought of the building. 

" ‘ I cannot/ said she, 'tell you what I think, for I do not 
know how to criticize such a building, but I can tell you 
how I feel. I would die to-morrow to have such another 
over me/” 

Almost as remarkable as the Taj itself is the reason why 
it was built. We Christians are apt to think of Moham¬ 
medan wives as unloved or at best only the playthings of 
their sensual husbands. They may be divorced at will 
or cast aside for others more beautiful. Yet the Taj 
Mahal was erected by a Moslem emperor to his admired 
and respected wife. Shah Jehan had one of the most 
gorgeous courts ever known and in his harem were ninety- 
nine wives. Of all these, however, he is said to have 
loved only the bride of his boyhood, the fair Mumtaz- 
i-Mahal. He married her before he came to the throne 
and for all their seventeen years of wedded life he was 
devoted to her alone. She was noted for her beauty, and 
was his companion and friend. He consulted with her on 
state affairs and trusted her with the royal seal. When 
she died in camp at the birth of her fourteenth child, her 
husband’s grief was so terrible that his hair turned white 
within a few weeks. He denied himself to courtiers and 
for two years refused all the pleasures of life. Every 
229 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


Friday he visited his wife’s grave and there read again 
the prayers for the dead. 

Construction of the Taj was begun two years after the 
death of Mumtaz-i-Mahal. Twenty thousand workmen 
were employed on it for seventeen years, and the structure 
represents an outlay of something like thirty-five million 
dollars, or four times as much as the cost of our Con¬ 
gressional Library at Washington. It took ten years to 
make the marble screen I have described. Originally it 
had a door of jasper, later changed to a screen of pure 
gold set with gems, and the sarcophagus was covered with 
a pall embroidered with pearls. 

After the Taj Mahal was completed Shah Jehan set 
aside the revenue of thirty villages to maintain it. Yet 
this "vision of eternal beauty” was allowed to fall into 
disrepair and one viceroy actually proposed to tear it down 
and sell its marble. That, however, was years ago, and 
to-day the Taj Mahal has the most scrupulous care from a 
British board entrusted with the duty of keeping it up. 

Not far from the Taj is the old fort of Agra built by 
Akbar, the grandfather of Shah Jehan. It has a circuit of 
more than a mile. Its red sandstone walls are nearly 
seventy feet high and its moat is thirty feet wide and 
thirty-five deep. The massive sandstone gates are inlaid 
with marble richly carved. Within the walls are some of 
the most wonderful buildings erected by the Moguls. 
Here is the Pearl Mosque, a companion to the mosque of 
the same name at Delhi. Bayard Taylor said that the 
Pearl Mosque of Agra seemed to him so perfect a symbol of 
the spirit of worship that he felt humbled to think that 
the Christian religion had never inspired its architects to 
surpass it. This temple to God and Mohammed is of the 


230 



Through the open doorway in the marble lacework at the front of the 
Taj Mahal one may look down the long vista of cypress-bordered foun¬ 
tains and pools to the great entrance gateway. 


































A seven-year-old scion of a leading family of Ahmedabad is being led 
to his wedding with a four year old girl. His baby bride will not, how¬ 
ever, come to live with him at his father’s home until she is ten or twelve. 





WOMAN’S GREATEST MONUMENT 


purest white marble, with three great silvery domes 
rising above it. The court is paved with marble squares, 
and inside are prayer spaces like those of the Jumma 
Musjid. There is a great marble tank in the centre, and 
upon the walls are inscriptions inlaid in black, which 
compare the building to a pearl and describe its builder 
as the king of kings and the shadow of God. 

In the white marble royal palace are audience halls, 
suites of magnificent rooms, women’s apartments lavishly 
decorated with carvings, and cool subterranean chambers 
in which the palace ladies took refuge from the heat. The 
interior walls are a lacework of marble, there are pillars 
inlaid with mosaic, and room after room contains screens 
of marble cutwork. The columns of some of the chambers 
were set with semi-precious stones. There were costly 
hangings and rugs worth a king’s ransom. The best part 
of the palace was built by Shah Jehan and one of its most 
beautiful portions was the harem where he kept his ninety- 
nine wives. I walked through it to-day. At one place 
is a marble balcony where Shah Jehan and Mumtaz-i- 
Mahal used to fish in an artificial lake lying below, and in 
another is a noble audience hall. The floor of one of the 
courts was divided into a chess board upon which the 
Emperor played, using pretty slave girls as pieces and 
directing their movements by his voice. 

I went through some of the bedrooms occupied in the 
past by the ladies of the harem and my guide showed me 
their treasure boxes. In the ledges of the windows cir¬ 
cular holes were cut just big enough for the fair ladies’ 
arms and about three feet in depth. Into these the houris 
dropped their diamonds and barbaric gold. I thrust my 
arm down one of them up to the shoulder, hoping to find 


231 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


a stray gem. The treasure box was empty, but I could 
feel my flesh thrill as it touched the stone. 

In one corner of the palace is a tiny building known 
as the Gem Mosque, which was reserved for the women of 
the harem. Near by is the bazaar where tradeswomen 
brought their wares to be looked over by the ladies sitting 
on their balcony above. A man caught here would have 
paid the penalty of instant death. Most beautiful of all 
is the Jasmine Tower, so called from the fact that the 
inlay of its decorations takes the form of the jasmine 
blossom. Here lived Mumtaz-i-Mahal, “the Light of the 
Palace.” In her day gold-embroidered awnings protected 
the open courtyard from the sun and the air was cooled 
by a fountain of perfumed water. From her balcony she 
might look through a screen of marble lacework upon the 
courtyard where her husband amused himself with sports 
becoming a warrior. A stairway led from her rooms down 
to the baths, the walls of which are inlaid with tiny 
mirrors. 

It was in the Jasmine Tower that Shah Jehan died. 
Arungzebe, one of his sons by Mumtaz-i-Mahal, murdered 
his two brothers, imprisoned his father, and seized the 
throne. Thus Shah Jehan spent the last years of his life 
shut up in the women’s apartments in the palace and 
passed away with his eyes turned toward the spot where 
he had raised in memory of the great love of his life the 
most beautiful building on earth. 


232 


CHAPTER XXVI 


BABY BRIDES AND CHILD WIDOWS 

AS I left the Taj Mahal to-day I saw a wedding 
/\ procession. It was headed by camels with 
f' m \ trappings of gold-embroidered cloth and ridden 
* by bare-legged men in red-and-gold turbans. 
Next came an elephant, followed by twelve Arabian 
horses, each of which had gold leglets above its fore-knees 
and silver bells around its neck. The saddles were of 
cloth of silver and the decorations on the bridles were of 
gold. Behind.these animals came the wedding chair, and 
farther back a band of musicians and a crowd of men 
singing and dancing. 

The wedding chair was a litter covered with a red-and- 
gold canopy. Upon the mattress in the curtained litter sat 
the bride and groom, facing each other and leaning back 
among the pillows. I peeped in through the curtains and 
saw them. They were children! The groom was a ten- 
year-old boy of a gingerbread colour, and the bride a little 
brown baby of five. The boy wore a gold cap and a suit 
embroidered in gold, and had heavy gold rings on his ankles 
and wrists. Around the girl’s neck was a gold chain, and 
she, also, was decked in gold bracelets and anklets. As I 
looked in, the groom smiled and waved his hand at me, but 
the baby bride did not open her eyes, and I was told that she 
had been drugged to keep her quiet during the ceremony. 
Since I have been in India I have seen a score of wedding 

233 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


processions, and in every case the brides have been 
children, although some of the grooms have been full- 
grown men. Several of the brides were six and eight years 
of age, and I have seen two of five. Such child marriages 
take place every day among the Hindus, and number 
millions in a year. According to the last census taken by 
the British, India has now more than two million wives 
under ten, and two hundred and fifty thousand of five 
years and less. It has six million married women of from 
ten to fifteen, and nine million more between fifteen and 
twenty. There are altogether about seventy-two million 
wives in the country, and one fourth of them are far below 
the average age at which our girls marry. The baby 
marriages are really not quite as shocking as they seem to 
us, for they are usually little more than engagements, or 
contracts that may not be broken. After the wedding 
the little bride is taken back to her parents, with whom 
she stays until she is ten or twelve years old. After that 
age she must go to live with her husband and his father and 
mother. In India the girls mature so rapidly that when 
they reach the early teens they are really women grown. 

Among the Hindus, marriages are always arranged by 
the parents. They are a matter of bargain and sale, and 
the father of the groom gets the bride's dowry. Every 
Hindu male must marry so as to beget a son to perform 
his funeral rites and rescue his soul from hell, while failure 
to marry off a daughter before she reaches womanhood 
brings disgrace upon her father in this life and hell fire 
in the next. Hence girls are often betrothed in their 
cradles. They are married as soon as they are able to 
walk, and are old women at the ages at which many of our 
girls become wives. 


234 


BABY BRIDES AND CHILD WIDOWS 


Not only with the Hindus, but among the Moslems as 
well, marriage is practically universal in India, so that 
in the whole country but four per cent, of the males over 
forty and one per cent, of the females over thirty are not 
and have never been married. These unmarried men and 
women are usually sufferers from some infirmity or dis¬ 
figurement, or they are beggars, prostitutes, concubines, 
or religious devotees, or belong to some group prevented 
by their caste rules from finding suitable mates. 

The code of Manu is most specific about the selection of 
a wife. It advises the Brahman to wed a female free from 
bodily defects, one with small teeth and soft limbs, a 
moderate quantity of hair, and a gait as dignified as that of 
an elephant. Let him beware of the maiden with reddish 
hair or of one who has no hair at all or who is sickly or 
red-eyed. 

There is little race suicide in India. The people want 
children. They marry to have them, and the more they 
bring into the world the better they like it. A woman who 
has no children is considered a curse to the family, and 
she who does not bear a son is branded as a failure. In 
that case her husband is expected to take a second wife, 
though polygamy is not usual among the Hindus. The 
marriages take place at such an early age that thousands 
of girls become mothers at twelve or thirteen, and even at 
eleven. Twenty-five-year-old grandmothers are not un¬ 
known, and I have heard of great-great-grandmothers only 
forty-eight years old. 

It is written in the books of the Hindu law that: 

The first three years of a girl’s life belong to the gods, to each god in 
turn, the Great God, the God of Preservation, the God of Destruction; 
from her fourth year onwards, a girl is marriageable. If you marry her 

235 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 

between her fourth and her seventh year, you go to a first-class heaven, 
between the seventh and the ninth year, to a second-class heaven; be¬ 
tween the ninth and the eleventh year, to a third-class heaven. For 
the parent who delays marriage longer than the eleventh year, there 
remains only hell. 

Hindu scholars have proclaimed over and over again 
that this is not an authentic passage from the sacred books, 
but was put in long after the divine revelations had been 
made. Still, the old, the illiterate, and the bigoted take 
it quite seriously. 

One of the worst things that can happen to the child 
bride is to be married to an old husband. This is not un¬ 
common, for a father is often glad to make an alliance 
with a well-to-do elderly man. In such cases the girl is 
almost sure to become a widow in a few years, and in India 
widowhood is a horrible fate. 

Of all the women on earth there is none, I think, whose 
misery is so great as that of the widow of India, especially 
if she is condemned to remain in her husband’s family. 
The moment he dies she becomes the servant of the 
household. She must dress in coarse cottons. Her head 
must be shaved and she cannot bathe as do the rest of the 
family. She must not sleep on a bed, but on the bare 
floor with nothing but a piece of matting beneath her. 
She cannot eat with the family and may have but one meal 
a day and that of the coarsest food. She must fast every 
two weeks, with special fasts now and then, the idea being 
that the more she is tormented the greater will be the 
happiness of her husband in heaven. She will bring bad 
luck to any one who meets her, and no man will continue a 
journey if he passes a widow on starting. 

Such is the widow’s life at home, and she cannot get 
236 


BABY BRIDES AND CHILD WIDOWS 


away. She is ostracized everywhere. She cannot hire 
out as a servant, for no one will take her, though if she is 
good looking she may be employed at the temples. Least 
of all is she supposed to marry again. It is an almost 
universal belief among the Hindus that a woman becomes 
a widow because of sin in some past existence. Hence, 
she devotes her widowhood to service and prayers to 
avert the wrath of the gods and to insure a happy rebirth 
for her husband. Cruel enough is this fate for the woman 
full grown or the old woman with but a few years to live. 
How much more terrible is it for the babies and children 
who become widows before they know what marriage 
means! Their whole lives are overshadowed, and they 
suffer until death. 

And to think that nearly twenty-seven millions are now 
enduring such an existence! India has one widow for 
every six women and girls. There are more than three 
hundred thousand young girls less than fifteen years of 
age living in the slavery of widowhood. 

Until comparatively recent times, widows used to be 
drugged with opium and burned alive on their husbands' 
funeral pyres but this practice of suttee has been pretty 
well stamped out by the British. When the government 
passed a law forbidding it there was a storm of disapproval 
from the women themselves. Suttee means “pure,” and a 
woman burned alive on the funeral pyre of her husband 
was believed to be purified of all sins committed in this 
life or past lives and was thus insured a fortunate rebirth. 
One still learns from native papers of cases in remote dis¬ 
tricts where widows have soaked their clothing in oil and 
applied a match, thus showing their determination to 
share the pyres of their husbands. After all, it is de- 
237 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


batable whether death by fire would not be preferable to 
such a widowhood. The Hindu widow of to-day burns 
daily with want, disgrace, and shame; her predecessor was 
happy in that she died but once. It does not seem 
strange that whereas, the world over, three times as many 
men as women take their own lives, in India more women 
than men commit suicide. 

The condition of women in India is such that I should 
think no husband would want his wife to bring a daughter 
into the world. He knows she will be an expense at her 
wedding, a slave when married, and an outcast if widowed. 
For these reasons the killing of female infants was common 
some years ago, and is still practised here and there in 
out-of-the-way places. About fifty years ago the gov¬ 
ernment passed an infanticide act, and at that time in¬ 
vestigated conditions. It was found that in certain 
localities every year hundreds of children were reported 
as “ carried off by wolves” and, strange to say, the wolves 
took only girls. In the year 1870 three hundred girl 
babies were “stolen by wolves” from the city of Amritsar 
alone. In times past the wells of some parts of India 
have been polluted by the bodies of drowned baby girls. 
I hear it whispered that even now girl babies are strang¬ 
led and that poison is sometimes laid on the mother’s 
breast so that when her baby sucks she may sleep for 
ever. Poisoning with opium was once a common practice, 
and the Indian mothers still give their babies enough 
opium to keep them quiet. British women have to watch 
the native nurses like hawks to prevent their dosing their 
little English charges in like manner. 

I attended a wedding the other night at which about five 
hundred Hindus were present. The groom was a bright 
238 



The upper caste Hindu woman is rather proud of the custom that 
decrees that she must hide her face from all save her husband and even 
when travelling in a bullock cart must seclude herself within smothery 
curtains. 



Perhaps the worst feature of being the wife of a middle-aged Hindu is 
the great risk of becoming a widow. If her husband dies, even at a ripe 
old age, his wife is considered somehow to blame and passes the rest of 
her life in penance and virtual slavery. 










In India there are six million wives between the ages of ten and fifteen 
and nine million more between fifteen and twenty years old. Thousands 
of girls become mothers at twelve or thirteen and twenty-five-year-old 
grandmothers are not unknown. 


^4 

-.nr 







BABY BRIDES AND CHILD WIDOWS 


little fellow of six dressed in a red velvet coat, tight velvet 
trousers, and a cap of cloth of gold. The bride was not 
present, and whether she was a baby or not I do not know. 
The chief feature of the ceremony was the performance of 
some Nautch girls, the professional dancers of the coun¬ 
try, to the music of two drums and an Indian fiddle. The 
girls went through the most surprising contortions. They 
twisted themselves this way and that; they bent back and 
forth as though they were India rubber. Most of their 
dancing was done without lifting their feet from the ground 
and some of their movements were beyond description 
indecent. 

Somewhat like the Nautch girls are the temple brides 
who are trained to dance at the shrines, to pander to the 
priests, and to sing obscene songs to the gods. While yet 
children they are obtained by the temples through pur¬ 
chase or as gifts from the parents. Sometimes a man 
who has recovered from illness buys a girl and presents her 
to a temple in token of his gratitude for the return of his 
health, or if one has a stroke of good luck he may make the 
priest such a present. All daughters born to the temple 
brides are brought up as dancing girls, being instructed 
in all the arts of seduction. Of late years public opinion 
has grown so strong against them that temple brides are 
no longer in evidence, although they are probably quite 
as numerous as ever. Some years ago a number of Hin¬ 
dus asked the Bombay government to outlaw the tem¬ 
ple brides in that presidency, and there was an attempt 
to do so. It failed because the masses of the people 
looked upon the institution as having the sanction of re¬ 
ligion, and it is the policy of the British to do nothing 
contrary to the religious beliefs of their subjects. The 
239 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 

law against suttee is a conspicuous exception to this 
principle. 

The awakening of India, now going on, cannot but better 
the condition of the native women. They could scarcely 
be worse off than they are, so that any change must be an 
improvement. The British are using all their influence 
against child marriages. Both the Brahmo Samaj and 
the Arya Samaj discourage them, and the Social Confer¬ 
ence, which meets annually in connection with the Indian 
National Congress, has made the abolition of child mar¬ 
riages a plank in its platform. The native ruler of Mysore 
has made a law prohibiting the marriage of girls under 
eight, and forbidding men over fifty to marry girls under 
fourteen. The late Gaekwar of Baroda, perhaps the 
most advanced of all the Indian princes, passed a law 
twenty years ago forbidding marriages of girls under nine 
and permitting girls of less than twelve and boys less 
than sixteen to marry only when their parents have 
obtained the consent of a special tribunal. The more 
progressive Hindus now marry between the ages of 
fifteen and eighteen. 

There is also a growing demand for reform in the matter 
of dowries, and some of the native newspapers insist 
that parents must come down on the extortionate charges 
imposed on a bride and her family. Some years ago a 
poor but educated Hindu of Calcutta was required by 
the family of his prospective son-in-law to furnish with 
his daughter a “bride-gift,” of more than two hundred and 
fifty dollars in coin and four hundred dollars in jewellery. 
This meant that he must mortgage his home and put the 
rest of his life in pawn to the money-lender. But his 
daughter, who was only about fourteen, poured kerosene 
240 


BABY BRIDES AND CHILD WIDOWS 


oil on her dress and set it afire. This was the note she 
left behind her: 

After I am gone, Father, I know that you will shed tears over my 
ashes. I shall be gone, but the family will be saved—May the con¬ 
flagration I shall kindle set the whole country on fire. 

Following this tragedy there was an epidemic of sui¬ 
cides of young girls in similar circumstances. One result 
was a league formed among young men of Madras who 
pledged themselves not to allow dowries with their brides. 

Pundita Ramabai, who lectured in the United States 
some years ago to raise money for her girls' school at 
Poona, was a pioneer in the effort to better the condition of 
the Hindu widows. Born a Brahman, she was educated 
in England, and for a time she was professor of Sanskrit 
in one of the colleges there. In her school at Poona all 
of the pupils are child widows, some of them only five 
or six years old. They are taught reading, writing, and 
arithmetic, as well as such arts as will fit them to make 
their living outside. They learn to sew and embroider, 
and the school has the contract for making the embroi¬ 
dered devices on the caps and sleeves of the trainmen on 
the government railroads. On the school farm some 
of the women learn dairying and sheep raising. Many of 
the graduates have become teachers, others are matrons 
of institutions, and not a few have married again. Some 
have become missionaries. 

Education is what is most needed to raise the Hindu 
women from their poor estate, but education of women is 
peculiarly difficult in India. The upper-caste women are 
as carefully secluded as are their Moslem sisters. They 
are said to be purdah , which means that they are to be 
241 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


seen by no men except their husbands. The lower-class 
Hindu woman is not purdah and goes about unveiled, but 
since it is a kind of distinction to be purdah , if a lower- 
caste husband grows wealthy his wife is likely to adopt 
the custom. No male doctor can treat a purdah woman, so 
that women doctors are really essential to the welfare of 
India, and one of the best things that has been done in 
late years for the women of India is the work of the Lady 
Hardinge Medical College at Delhi in training female 
doctors and nurses. 

More difficult to overcome than the custom of seclusion 
is the lack of interest in education on the part of the wo¬ 
men themselves. In India about one male in every hun¬ 
dred can read and write English, and one male in every ten 
can read and write in some one of the many languages 
of the Indian Empire. This is bad enough, but among 
the females only thirteen in a thousand are literate. The 
women are really too ignorant to want any education. 

In all India less than a million and a half women and girls 
are getting instruction of any kind and at least half the 
population is growing up without any schooling whatso¬ 
ever. Our missionaries are doing much, particularly for 
the girls of the depressed classes. Twenty years or more 
ago women of the American Methodist Church founded 
the Isabella Thoburn College for women at Lucknow. 
There are now in the country fifteen colleges and more 
than a hundred and twenty-five training schools for 
women, but there are only about twelve hundred women 
getting a higher education and but three or four thousand 
in the training schools. I have been told that there would 
be little trouble in increasing the number of such institu¬ 
tions if there were any chance of filling them with students. 

242 



In the heart of the capital of the rich and powerful Nizam of Hyderabad 
stands the Char Minar. Its minarets face the cardinal points of the 
compass and under each of its four arches runs a principal street of the 
city. 







Many of the rulers of the native states scattered throughout India are 
immensely rich and have incredible hoards of gold, silver, and jewels. To 
their subjects they appear absolutely supreme, but in reality they are 
under British control. 





CHAPTER XXVII 


JAIPUR AND THE RAJAHS 

I MAGINE miles of pink houses laid out along checker¬ 
board streets. Through the latticework over the 
windows that jut out from the second stories let dark 
eyes peep, or here and there let nut-brown fingers 
loaded with rings clasp the woodwork. Seat on some of 
the balconies dark, turbaned men and richly dressed boys, 
beside them slender maidens, with faces modestly covered 
by bright coloured scarfs. In the midst of the houses set 
a great enclosure in which are many pink palaces and their 
beautiful gardens, and erect about the whole a crenellated 
wall pierced by seven gateways. Now you have the out¬ 
lines of my surroundings to-day in the “ rose-red city” of 
Jaipur, capital of one of the most prosperous of the native 
states of northwest India. 

Jaipur is said to be the finest native capital of India, and 
it is one of the few cities of the Orient laid out on a regular 
plan. Its main thoroughfare is two miles long and one 
hundred and ten feet wide, and this is intersected by other 
streets of the same width, with narrower ones crossing 
between them. The roads are as hard as stone and as 
smooth as a floor. All the plaster houses are painted 
pink, so that I feel in Jaipur almost as if I had strayed 
on to a stage set for a musical comedy. 

Under the balconies of the houses are tiny shops in which 
are merchants selling the thousand and one things used by 


243 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


the people. Moving along the streets is a throng of natives 
and their beasts. Here is a little caravan of gaunt camels, 
ridden by bare-legged men in turbans who bob up and 
down as they rock on their way. There is a camel rid¬ 
den by a woman. Her bare legs ringed with anklets are 
astride the hump and one eye peeps out as she directs the 
driver where to lead her mount. Here is another camel 
carrying stones and going along with his lip hanging down, 
pouting like a spoiled child. Up the street is an elephant. 
It belongs to the Rajah and its rider is one of the servants 
of the palace who is taking the beast out for exercise. 
There is a herd of donkeys, no bigger than Newfoundland 
dogs, and almost hidden under their heavy loads. Their 
drivers pound and yell at them as they urge them along 
without either bridle or rein. Here, too, are many 
humped bullocks, bearing on their backs panniers filled 
with hay, stone, or merchandise. 

Now and then Arab horses come prancing by and as 
you look at them and their riders you have no doubt that 
there is wealth in Jaipur. What gorgeous costumes! 
These native nobles wear enough gold embroidery to deck 
all the diplomats at a White House reception. There are 
gold chains about their necks, and their arms and fingers 
are heavy with jewels. They have gold-embroidered tur¬ 
bans and vests of cloth of gold. Their bridle bits are 
often of silver. Each sits straight in his saddle, while the 
groom at his stirrup runs along shouting to the people to 
get out of the way. 

The crowd on foot is as gay as that upon horseback. 
Here comes a party of singing girls dressed all in red and 
gold, chanting strange songs as they dance through the 
streets. Their silver bracelets and anklets jingle as they 
244 


JAIPUR AND THE RAJAHS 

move. After them come Moslem maidens in short waists 
and garments like dirty red drawers that are wide at the 
waist, but taper down into tights at the calves. They have 
a saucy way of walking, like their kind the world over. 
There are working women also. Some of them are mend¬ 
ing the road, breaking stones or carrying the crushed rock 
in baskets on their heads. A corps of brown men in waist- 
cloths, their skins glistening with sweat, are stamping the 
gravel into the roadbed, and as they do so a water carrier 
sprinkles the crushed stone with a thin stream from his 
water bag. Everywhere in India one sees these men, 
watering the streets or peddling water from house to house., 
Their bottles are each made of the whole skin of a pig, and 
as they pass you feel as if you had stepped back into the 
days of the Bible. 

The best time to see Jaipur is in the evening, when the 
air is cooled and the sinking sun flushes the pink buildings 
to a deeper rose. Then along the wide main street booths 
are opened and hundreds of merchants spread their wares, 
upon the pavement. Here for a block only shoes are for 
sale, and the turned-up slippers of the Mohammedan and 
dainty footwear of satin embroidered in gold are set out to 
await buyers. Here are a score of brass merchants, there 
a whole block is taken up with the fruit and vegetable 
sellers, and in the side streets carpenters are sawing away. 
Walking through long aisles of Hindus displaying the 
gaudiest cottons, we come to a Kashmir cloth merchant 
and haggle over a shawl. His stock includes shawls 
worth thousands of rupees, but some can be bought for a 
few dollars. He asks for all of them three times what he 
expects to get and in case you object is willing to throw 
up a coin and let head or tail decide the bargain. 

245 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


Most American visitors buy shawls in this part of India 
and after a sale is made the merchant invariably demands 
that a recommendation be written in his notebook. 
This he shows to other travellers, and I find scattered 
over India the autographs of many of my prominent 
fellow countrymen. At Delhi I saw an autograph of 
a man so noted that the merchant who had it at the 
bottom of a statement that his wares were good, told 
me that he had been offered one hundred rupees for it, 
and that he would not sell it for one hundred thou¬ 
sand rupees. Over another well-known signature is the 
testimonial that the writer finds a certain man’s shawls 
good and he supposes they are cheap. The dealer at that 
stand tells me that this notable bought a dozen Kashmir 
shawls, saying he wanted to use them for making under¬ 
shirts. These were of the kind called ring shawls, so fine 
that one can be pulled through a wedding ring. It must 
be nice to have an undershirt so filmy, and I can see the 
advantage of such a garment in the case of a man who 
travels with his extra clothing in his hat. 

Over all these traders and other residents of the city, as 
well as over the more than two million souls in the state 
of which it is the capital, the Maharajah of Jaipur has the 
power of life and death. He lives in the pomp befitting 
such a potentate. His palaces here cover acres and in his 
gardens are silvery fountains and peacocks spreading their 
gorgeous feathers as they strut in and out of the court¬ 
yards. These courts are floored with marble, over which 
are scattered Persian rugs of great price. In one of the 
palaces I saw a billiard room the floor of which was 
covered with the skins of tigers and leopards. I passed 
from one to another of a series of small rooms filled with 
246 



Some of the wealthiest of the native princes keep elephants for cere¬ 
monial occasions. Until the completion of the carriage road from Jaipur 
to Amber, the Maharajah of Jaipur always furnished distinguished visitors 
with elephant mounts for the ride. 






Indian entertainers are always on tour, and conjurers, acrobats, snake 
charmers, and monkey and bear leaders go about picking up a precarious 
living. The Indian acrobatic feats are really remarkable and may be 
classed with those of the Japanese. 





JAIPUR AND THE RAJAHS 

beautiful works of Indian art—carved ivory, jewelled and 
inlaid caskets, and enamels such as are made only in the 
state of Jaipur. 

I saw also the outside of the zenana where His Highness 
keeps his numerous ladies, and then took a look at the 
stables. They are built around a space of six acres or 
more, and are heavily roofed to keep off the sun. The 
stalls are filled with fine stock. There are stallions from 
Arabia, America, and Europe, as well as some from 
different parts of India. The Maharajah has, besides, a 
dozen or more state elephants for use on ceremonial oc¬ 
casions. Some are of enormous size. Their tusks have 
been cut off and the ends bound with brass rings. These 
beasts are tattooed on their foreheads and ears in the 
patterns of a shawl. When they are brought out for the 
ruler they are covered with fancy trappings and have brass 
chains around their necks. 

On my first visit to India I accepted the invitation of the 
secretary of the Maharajah to ride to the ruined city of 
Amber upon one of the royal elephants. He was brought 
around for me shortly before noon and at the command 
of the Hindu driver sitting on his head he knelt down so 
that I might mount to his back. I scrambled up a step- 
ladder into a cushioned saddle with bars around the sides, 
and the driver showed me how to hold on while the huge 
creature lumbered to his feet. He raised himself upon 
one leg at a time, and I bobbed back and forth like a ship 
in a storm. After we started, the motion was a swaying 
this way and that, and I became half seasick as we wound 
our way up the mountains. In front of me was the 
driver, with his brown legs clasped over the elephant’s 
neck just back of the big, flapping ears. With a sharp 
247 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


steel hook he stirred up the great beast, and now and then 
made him trot. 

After a time I got used to the motion, and when we were 
out in the country and climbing the hills I began to enjoy 
my strange ride. I had to watch out, however, for every 
now and then something made the elephant shy. At one 
place a monkey ran across the road and a long-tailed 
ape jumped through the branches just over our heads, 
whereupon my beast swerved and almost threw me out 
of my seat. At other places we saw wild peacocks, and 
among the trees wild hogs were feeding. 

By and by we came to the ruined city of Amber, 
which long ago was the capital of Jaipur. It was once 
a magnificent city, with fine residences, big business 
quarters, and temples and palaces. But one of the rajahs 
of the past became dissatisfied with his surroundings and 
decreed that the capital should be moved down to the 
plains. Amber is now quite deserted and the monkeys 
play in its ruins. 

The present Maharajah succeeded to the throne only 
recently. 1 do not know what he is worth, but he certainly 
has money to burn. When on one occasion his predeces¬ 
sor went to England, he is said to have spent a million 
dollars on the journey, besides giving away something like 
a half million dollars in charities during that trip. He 
chartered a special steamer which was fitted up with six 
different kitchens to comply with the varying caste re¬ 
quirements of his retinue. He took with him his own 
drinking water from the Ganges, and had a little temple 
built on the ship where he worshipped Rama, his divine 
ancestor. In his train were priests, servants of all kinds, 
several wives, and a troupe of Nautch girls, and when he 
248 


JAIPUR AND THE RAJAHS 

reached London his cortege filled to overflowing the 
palace that the government allotted to him. 

Indeed, the wealth of some of these native princes seems 
fabulous. In every jewellery store in the cities of India one 
finds flashy jewellery set with diamonds worth a fortune. 
At Calcutta I saw two amazing rings. One had a diamond 
of about the size of a hickory nut set around with a clus¬ 
ter of small diamonds as big as peas and the whole was 
affixed to a finger ring containing enough gold to make a 
hunting-case watch. In the other, the central stone was a 
ruby fully as big as a chestnut, and the diamonds about it 
were very beautiful. The settings of these rings were 
larger around than a twenty-five cent piece, and I asked 
the jeweller who would wear such gorgeous and unwieldy 
objects. He replied: 

“Oh, we sell these to the rajahs. They want the most 
extravagant jewellery, and some of them fairly cover them¬ 
selves with gems.” 

The treasure of the Gaekwar of Baroda includes gun- 
carriages and cannon of gold and silver, containing two 
hundred and eighty pounds of precious metal apiece. In 
state processions these are drawn by white bullocks, 
covered with gold-embroidered trappings and with horns 
encased in silver. In this collection also is a great neck¬ 
lace containing the sixth largest diamond in the world 
and three pearls said to be valued at one hundred thou¬ 
sand dollars. 

The richest of all the princes is the Nizam of Hydera¬ 
bad, whose revenues are about fifteen million dollars a 
year. His palaces are enormous, and he has seven 
thousand retainers and servants. His courtyards full of 
elephants, camels, and horses, remind one of a page 
249 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


from the “Arabian Nights.” The country ruled by the 
Nizam is more than twice as large as the State of Ohio. 
He is a Mohammedan, but the bulk of his thirteen million 
subjects are Hindus. 

His collection of jewels is said to be worth thirty million 
dollars. He has the Nizam diamond, one of the finest 
stones of its kind, and in his realm is Golconda, the 
diamond-producing centre of the past. 

There is a story that on one occasion the late Nizam 
of Hyderabad was walking with his small son, who ex¬ 
pressed a desire for a red-tailed nightingale he saw on 
another small boy’s wrist. 

The Nizam turned to one of his courtiers. “Go buy 
that bird for seven hundred rupees,” said he. 

“Seven hundred rupees!” exclaimed the courtier. “Why, 
Your Highness could get it for a sixteenth of that sum.” 

His Exalted Highness frowned. “Indeed!” said he. 
“Go, pay the boy seven thousand rupees and bring me the 
nightingale and the receipt.” 

Another prince who has magnificent jewels and who 
lives in great state, is the Maharana of Udaipur, whose 
ancestors refused to mingle their blood even with that of 
a Mohammedan emperor. He claims to have the bluest 
blood of any of the native rulers and clings to all the old 
customs. Progressive rulers like those of Jaipur, Baroda, 
Mysore, and Gwalior, have spent their revenues on im¬ 
proving their domains, but Udaipur has no use for such 
modern ideas. He is an ultra-conservative, speaks no 
English, and never leaves India. On one occasion he 
heard that at a great durbar, or official gathering, to 
which he was invited, the Viceroy was to ride at the head 
of the procession with his wife on an elephant beside him. 


250 


JAIPUR AND THE RAJAHS 

Udaipur declined to attend, for he would not lower him¬ 
self by riding behind a woman. Instead, he sent a richly 
caparisoned elephant to walk in his place in line. 

Because of his traditional descent from the sun god 
himself, the Maharana of Udaipur claims to outrank every 
human being in India. But the Nizam of Hyderabad, by 
virtue of having the most extensive territory, the biggest 
income, and the largest army of any native prince, claims 
that he is the premier native ruler. When King George V 
and Queen Mary came to Delhi just after their corona¬ 
tion, the Nizam asserted his right to lead the grand pro¬ 
cession of princes which was to file past their Majesties. 
Udaipur declared that if he had to follow the Nizam he 
would not come. The situation was delicate, for the 
British cannot afford to offend the sensitive feelings of 
the more powerful of the native princes. Finally both the 
rulers’ claims were satisfied; the Nizam led the proces¬ 
sion, but Udaipur, as personal aide-de-camp to King 
George, stood on the dais beside the King-Emperor while 
the other princes of India passed in review. The man 
who thought of this happy solution was knighted. 

The native states of India are scattered all over the coun¬ 
try from Kashmir and Nepal in the Himalayas to the 
southern end of Hindustan. The princes and rajahs 
are supposed by the common people to have absolute 
power, but they are all to some extent under the control 
of the British and all have British advisers at their el¬ 
bows. These princes may not make war or peace or 
send ambassadors to each other or to outside states. 
They are permitted to keep limited military forces as 
police, or for cooperation with the British government, 
but even the Nizam has only sixteen thousand soldiers. 


251 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 

No European may reside at any of their courts without 
the sanction of the government, and in case of outrageous 
misrule, the British can come in and take charge. 

Some few of the native states pay a cash tribute. Leading 
states, such as Hyderabad, Mysore, Baroda, and Kashmir, 
are in direct relations with the government of British 
India, while others are grouped under the direction of 
agents of the Viceroy. Sometimes for misconduct a 
ruler is deposed by the British, or he may lose his title 
of Maharajah, or the number of guns accorded him 
in salute may be cut down. Every rajah is extremely 
jealous of his quota of guns. One with a salute of less 
than nine guns may not be addressed as “Your High¬ 
ness.” It must gall the haughty Udaipur to have to 
get along with only nineteen guns, while the rulers of 
Gwalior, Hyderabad, Baroda, Kashmir, and Mysore are 
twenty-one-gun rajahs. 

While many of the native rulers are extremely backward 
and some, like the Maharao of Cutch, boast that they 
spend nothing on public improvements, others are no¬ 
tably progressive. The late Baroda was tireless in his 
efforts to better conditions. The maharajahs of Gwalior 
and of Mysore are leaders of progress. The latter has 
hired experts, some of them Americans, to help him 
with his various projects, such as a great hydro-electric 
plant, a blast furnace, cotton and woollen mills, and 
irrigation works. He has granted his people represen¬ 
tative institutions, and Indians claim that Mysore is as 
well administered as British India itself. Bangalore, the 
capital city, has such fine sanitation that it is practically 
plague proof. Yet this ruler is not a university graduate, 
has never been out of India, and is a fanatical Hindu. 


252 


JAIPUR AND THE RAJAHS 

Quite a number of the reigning princes of India have been 
educated abroad, at Paris, or in England, or even in the 
United States. The late Gaekwar of Baroda sent his son 
to Harvard. The British virtually oblige the rajahs to 
send their sons to one of the four princes' colleges, which 
are situated at Lahore, Ajmer, Rajkot, and Indore. The 
most important of these is Mayo College at Ajmer, less 
than one hundred miles south of Jaipur. It is managed 
by a committee of native rulers and was founded in 1873 
by Lord Mayo especially for the noble youth of Rajpu- 
tana. In the United States the college would rank as a 
preparatory school with the standing of, say, Andover or 
Exeter. After completing the regular course a young man 
may take post-graduate work in the same institution 
equivalent to university training with us. The teaching 
is in English, Hindi, Urdu, Sanskrit, and Persian. 

I was interested to learn that as taught at Mayo the 
multiplication table does not stop at twelve times twelve, 
but with twenty-five times twenty-five. Some of the two 
hundred young princes in attendance are under the care of 
tutors and all are allowed one servant, while some are 
granted more. Some of the wealthy ones have their own 
automobiles. Athletic exercise is compulsory and the 
masters try to inculcate the ideals of such British schools 
as Eton and Rugby. 

When the East India Company began expanding its scope 
in Hindustan, the states under native rulers came gradu¬ 
ally under British influence and the princes were usually 
confirmed in their possessions. This policy was more or 
less abandoned not long before the Mutiny of 1857 an ^ m 
the regime of Lord Dalhousie, either because of failure of 
heirs or because of gross misrule, some of the states fell 

253 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


into the hands of the company. But when, following the 
Mutiny, the British Crown took over the management of 
British territory in India, Queen Victoria made a pledge 
to the Indian princes that they should be protected in their 
rights and dignity, and that the integrity of their domains 
should be preserved. So now when the nationalist agi¬ 
tators declare that the rajahs are bloodsuckers fattening 
on the poor, and demand their deposition, the British feel 
bound to protect the rulers from aggression. This is 
probably the main reason why the rajahs have remained 
loyal to the British during all the unrest of the last fifteen 
or twenty years. 


254 



Bombay has one of the finest open harbours in the Far East and is well 
equipped with docks and modern cargo-handling machinery. Via the Suez 
Canal it is nearer both New York and London than is Calcutta. 



Within easy reach of Bombay are the principal cotton-growing areas of 
India, the third largest cotton producer in the world. Thousands of bales 
go out to the mills of England and Japan, returning as cheap calicoes for 
the millions of Hindustan. 











Bombay policemen are forbidden to buy food when in uniform, as it 
was found they used to frighten tradesmen into lowering their prices. 
They evade this ruling by ordering supplies when on duty and paying for 
them later. 










CHAPTER XXVIII 


BOMBAY, WESTERN GATEWAY OF INDIA 

I MADE the seven-hundred-mile journey from Jaipur 
to Bombay in less than twenty-four hours. Yet in 
that short time I seem to have been transported from 
one world to another. Jaipur with its wide streets of 
rose-coloured houses appeared to be dreaming away under 
the strong sunlight, unmindful of time and change. 
At Bombay I am in the industrial capital of Hindustan. 
The smoke of factory chimneys streams across its skies 
and ships from the four corners of the earth throng its 
port. 

Its position in relation to the other big centres for sea 
trade, its harbour, and cotton have made Bombay a world 
port and a halfway station for all voyagers around the 
globe. Via the Suez Canal it is nearer New York and 
London than is Calcutta, on the opposite side of the 
Indian peninsula. Hence the bulk of our trade with 
India, as well as a large part of Great Britain's, is handled 
through this entrance on the western coast of the country. 
Sixty per cent, of Bombay’s trade is with England, about 
twelve per cent, is with Japan, and about ten per cent, 
with us. We buy here such raw products as manganese for 
our steel and shellac for our varnish, and ship in iron and 
steel, machinery, dyestuffs, and paper. Some of our big 
industrial concerns, such as sewing-machine, typewriter, 
oil, and automobile firms, have their Indian headquarters 
255 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 

at Bombay. There is quite a colony of Europeans and 
Americans, and their activities lend an atmosphere of 
western push and energy to this city of the Orient. 

Near to or in easy reach of Bombay over excellent trunk 
lines of railway are the main cotton-growing areas of 
India, the third largest cotton producer in the world. For 
many years thousands of bales have been pouring through 
this sea gate to the mills of Manchester and Japan and 
coming back again as cheap cotton cloth for India’s 
millions, while the growth of textile and other industries 
in the city itself has led to large imports of machinery 
and other manufactured goods. 

Bombay has one of the finest open harbours in the Far 
East and the demand for factory workers has made wages 
in the Bombay district so much higher than those in 
other ports of India that it pays here to use the most 
improved cargo-handling machinery instead of human 
muscle. The Port Trust has built excellent docks with 
ample accommodations and modern equipment for the 
endless procession of vessels coming into or leaving its 
piers. 

Like New York, Bombay lies on an island. This is 
twelve miles long, but very narrow, and is connected with 
the mainland by a causeway. Like Boston, the city has 
its Back Bay. It lies between the two points, Colaba and 
Malabar Hill. Along this bay, and fronting on the 
Esplanade Road, are the handsome public buildings 
that make Bombay so imposing to passengers on the 
incoming steamers. Architecturally, there is a consider¬ 
able mixture of style and ornate decoration in the public 
offices, yet the effect of the whole is certainly impressive. 

Along the shore of the bay runs Queen’s Road, a fine 
256 


BOMBAY, WESTERN GATEWAY OF INDIA 


boulevard leading out to residential quarters of thewealthy 
on Malabar Hill. Right on the point is the residence of 
the governor of the presidency, who, with the governor of 
Madras, ranks next to the Viceroy himself. 

I am staying at the Taj Mahal Hotel, across Colaba 
Point from Back Bay. It is a huge building placed 
where it will catch any breeze that comes in from the sea. 
The rooms are as big and airy, I suppose, as they can 
be, but my quarters, like all Bombay, are hot, hot, hot. 
At any rate, there are electric fans everywhere, and the 
air circulates freely. The big windows have no curtains; 
they would be too smothery in this heat. The floors 
are cool tiles. Outside my door is a little recess where my 
servant sleeps. When I want him I clap my hands and he 
is here in a moment. 

This afternoon when the heat has moderated I shall go 
out on the streets and join the crowds once more. The 
street scenes of this great meeting-place of the eastern 
world never lose their fascination for me. Here are Arab 
traders, Chinese, Japanese, Malays, Negroes, besides all 
the various peoples of India—Afghans and Sikhs from 
northern Hindustan, Rajputs, Bengalis, Mahrattas, and 
many others. There is colour on all sides. The men 
and women wear orange, pink, blue, saffron, brown, 
purple, and red. Even the native carts are of bright 
hues and the horns of the small white bullocks drawing 
them are gaily painted. Everyone must have some 
kind of head covering as a protection against the 
sun, and there are turbans, caps, and hats of every cut 
and colour. One man says that at the races here he once 
counted fifty-odd different kinds of headgear in the crowd. 
Most noticeable of all are the glazed oil-cloth hats of the 


257 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


Parsees, which look somewhat like one of our high silk 
hats without any brim. 

Among the Parsees, by the way, are the prettiest women 
of all India. They are slender and well formed, and have 
clear olive-brown skins, beautiful eyes, and fine, intel¬ 
lectual faces. Their dress consists of one large piece of 
silk, called a sari , gracefully draped around the body, and 
carried up over the top of the head so that the face is 
framed in the soft folds. Many of them, I note, have silk 
stockings and slippers to match the colour of their draper¬ 
ies. Most of the young Parsee girls dress like Europeans, 
except that they wear red caps embroidered in gold thread. 
In the teens they adopt the sari , which is always worn by 
the orthodox Parsee women in India, though some may 
put on French hats and gowns when travelling abroad. 
Some of their saris are beautiful and one may cost more 
than a thousand dollars. Many of them are made in the 
town of Surat, where handweavingand printing silks are the 
chief home industries. Though the Parsee men are often 
rather fine looking, their hideous hats and their preacher¬ 
like coats keep them from seeming as attractive as the 
women. 

When one drives along the Queen’s Road and sees the 
fine public buildings facing Back Bay, when he goes up to 
Malabar Hill with its houses set in ample grounds, or 
when he sits drinking tea on the terrace of the Yacht Club 
overlooking the harbour, it is hard to realize how the other 
half lives in Bombay. Indeed, not a half but more than 
three fourths of the people of the city are huddled into 
wretched hovels with scarcely room to breathe. Most 
of the more than a million inhabitants of Bombay are 
crowded into an area of about eleven square miles. The 
258 


BOMBAY, WESTERN GATEWAY OF INDIA 


town grew up haphazard without regard to street plan¬ 
ning or sanitation. The landlords, bent on getting the 
last cent they could from their properties, put up five-and 
six-story tenements consisting of mere nests of rooms, with 
but little attention to ventilation and light. No wonder 
Bombay has had a long history of terrible plagues in which 
tens of thousands have died like flies, nor that of every 
thousand babies born here six hundred and sixty-six do 
not live through their first year. 

It is estimated that ninty-seven per cent, of the working 
class families dwell in one-room tenements, and according to 
a recent census, there is only one building for every twenty- 
two persons. In a single room, twelve by fifteen feet, there 
were found living six families, a total of thirty adults and 
children. To remedy such conditions the Bombay Im¬ 
provement Trust was formed some years ago. This 
body has done much for better sanitation and is now 
embarked on a large enterprise for housing the industrial 
workers. 

Thousands of the people who live in the overcrowded 
tenements are employed in Bombay's cotton mills. Of 
the two million persons employed in all the factories 
of India, a little more than six hundred thousand work 
in textile mills of one kind or another—jute mills, carpet- 
and rug-weaving plants, silk mills, and cotton mills. By 
far the greater number of these textile workers are in the 
cotton mills, and of the two hundred and eighty-one such 
factories in the Indian Empire, one hundred and eighty- 
three are situated in Bombay or its suburbs. These em¬ 
ploy nearly a quarter of a million natives. 

Cotton has been raised in India for centuries, and has 
been manufactured here for more than a hundred years, 
259 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


but it was our Civil War that gave the industry its first 
big growth. When England could not get cotton from our 
Southern States, she turned to India. In four years the 
value of the cotton export increased twelve hundred per 
cent, and Bombay enjoyed a great boom. Peace in the 
United States caused a great slump here, in which many 
fortunes were lost, but for the last thirty or forty years the 
Indian cotton industry has steadily grown. 

The exports of raw cotton now amount to more than 
$200,000,000 worth a year, while manufacturing has been 
so developed that India now makes a considerable part of 
the cotton goods she requires. She still imports, however, 
about $2 34,000,000 worth of cotton manufactures, including 
twist and yarn. With more than 300,000,000 people all 
wearing cotton, the home market for India's textiles is 
enormous. Just over the way is China, with 430,000,000 
who also wear cottons, and there is, in addition, a big 
market in Africa. 

Indian labour, though cheap, is in many respects not so 
satisfactory as that available in Japan and it is far less ef¬ 
ficient than that of English and American mills. The fac¬ 
tory workers of Hindustan are underfed and have been for 
years. Discipline is difficult. For instance, while the 
workers come early to the factories, in many instances they 
knock off for the breakfast brought them from their homes 
any time between nine and eleven in the morning. When¬ 
ever the spirit moves them they stop for a smoke or a chat. 
In some mills the children come along with their mothers 
and play around the machines. In odd corners one may 
run across babies swung to cross beams in coarse ham¬ 
mocks, and at any minute their mothers may leave their 
work to attend to infantile demands. Often, too, the 
260 


BOMBAY, WESTERN GATEWAY OF INDIA 

native factory hand retains an interest in a bit of land 
back in his home village, and at sowing and harvest times, 
or in the wedding season in June, off he goes, perhaps 
staying for months before coming back to the factory. In 
the Bombay cotton mills the proportion of absenteeism 
sometimes amounts to as much as seventeen per cent. 

The natives seem unable to manipulate anything except 
the simpler machinery. The majority of the machine 
weavers of India handle two looms, whereas I am told that 
in England it is rare to find a weaver who cannot manage 
from eight to twelve looms of the same kind as those in use 
in the Bombay mills. It seems to be the general opinion 
here that it takes from four to six Indians to do the work of 
one American. It is therefore a question whether or not 
the native labour of India is really so cheap after all. 

The employers complain of the high wages. They are 
higher than they were before the World War, just as living 
costs are higher, yet they certainly would not be con¬ 
sidered exorbitant with us. The average daily earning of a 
man in the Bombay cotton mills is under forty-five cents, 
while the women receive about twenty-five cents. A 
weaver tending two looms gets sixty-three cents a day, 
while a man looking after but one may be paid thirty- 
three cents. The monthly income of an average working- 
class family in Bombay consisting of a man, his wife, and 
two children, is a little more than fourteen dollars of which 
nearly seventy per cent, must be spent on food alone. 

One of the first acts of the Indian Legislature was to 
pass a factory law reducing the maximum working hours 
from seventy to sixty in a week and prohibiting night 
work for women. It also set the minimum age for em¬ 
ployment of children at twelve years. This measure was 
261 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


based on the recommendations of the first International 
Labour Conference, held at Washington in 1919, and 
marked a big step forward in improving the condition of 
the mill workers of India. 

Many of the mill owners have grown enormously 
wealthy. I heard of the president of one of the big 
mills apologizing at a directors’ meeting for the fact that 
in the year covered by his report the business was paying 
only forty-two per cent, dividends. Such big dividends 
are not being realized to-day, yet I understand that the 
Indian mills are quite able to compete with those of 
England, Germany, and Japan, and still earn handsome 
profits on their capital. 

The terrible poverty of India is not confined either to 
her farmers or her factory workers. This morning I had 
an illustration of how still another class feels its pinch. I 
was waiting at the post office to register a letter when I 
heard a quarrel going on among the clerks. The noise was 
so great that I went to the window and looked in. I saw 
there a big, fine-looking Babu, or native petty official, 
dressed in a long white coat and gold turban, cursing a lean 
Hindu in a cheap garb of white cotton. The Babu shook 
both his fists in the little man’s face, and denounced his 
ancestors to the seventh generation. The little fellow 
protested and apologized; but the Babu only cursed him 
the louder and ended by shoving him back to his place at 
the sorting table. When I asked what the matter was the 
weighing clerk whispered: 

"The mail is late and that clerk is partly the cause. It is 
not his fault, though. He is poor and has not had enough 
to eat. Hungry men cannot work fast. That man gets 
only fifteen rupees (five dollars) a month, and one cannot 
262 



Like New York, Bombay is built upon an island, and the influx of 
factory workers has crowded the native quarters almost past endurance. 
Three fourths of its population live in one-room tenements. 







One reason that there are few fatal accidents from the deadly cobras 
used by the Indian jugglers is the fact that every day the snake-charmers 
force the reptiles to bite through thick cloth and thus expend their venom. 



BOMBAY, WESTERN GATEWAY OF INDIA 

buy much rice for that. It used to be better; but things 
are so high now that the poor have not enough.” 

The incident, together with what I had been hearing of 
wages and conditions among the factory people here, gave 
me food for thought. On the whole, I am not surprised that 
there are numerous strikes in Bombay or that this city at 
once so prosperous and so poverty-stricken should be a 
centre of unrest. 

1 was diverted a moment ago from such depressing reflec¬ 
tions as these by the sound of a flute beneath my window. 
Stopping my writing, I looked out to see an Indian jug¬ 
gler on the pavement below. I tossed him a few annas 
so that he would go through his tricks. He gave his per¬ 
formance on the pavement without table, cabinet, or 
any of the paraphernalia of the American wizard. His 
equipment consisted of three small baskets, ranging in 
size from half a peck to a bushel, a couple of cloths, and a 
tripod of sticks. Three little wooden dolls with red cloths 
tied around their necks represented the gods that enabled 
him to do wonderful things. He was black-faced and 
black-bearded, and like all magicians, had his shirt sleeves 
pulled up above his elbows. His only assistant was a 
little turbaned boy. 

He performed first the basket trick of India, one of 
the most noted juggling feats of the world. The boy's 
hands were bound and he was put into a net, which was 
tied over his head and enclosed his whole body so that ap¬ 
parently he could not move. He was then crowded into a 
basket two feet square, and the lid was closed and strapped 
down. The juggler took up a sword and made a few 
passes over it with the doll gods, muttering incantations 
as he did so. Then he thrust the sword again and again 
263 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


into the basket, and it came out red. There was a crying 
as though a child were in terrible pain. I held my breath 
and felt like pouncing on the man, though I knew it was 
only a trick. After a moment the cries ceased, the juggler 
made a few more passes, unbuckled the straps, and showed 
that the basket was empty. He called “ Baba! baba !” and 
in the distance 1 heard the child’s voice. How the boy 
got out of the basket or escaped being killed by the sword 
and where the blood came from I do not know. 

The tripod was used for the mango trick. First the 
juggler poured water over a little pot of earth. Next he 
held up a mango seed about the size of a walnut and put¬ 
ting this into the earth he threw a cloth over the tripod 
and the pot. He blew on his flute, made mysterious 
passes, and after a few moments raised the cloth. There 
was a mango tree sprouting from the soil! More passes 
and more music followed and the cloth was pulled down 
again. After a few moments he drew out the pot and the 
plant had grown about a foot. Further watering and 
longer incantations, and his final triumph came in reveal¬ 
ing a bush nearly a yard high, and covered with leaves. 
Uprooting this, he showed me the seed at the bottom. 

The other day I saw a juggler do the snake trick. Asking 
me to hold out my hand, the man laid a piece of paper 
upon it. He then began playing his flute and staring as 
if he saw something near my hand. He danced around 
me like a wizard, playing all the time and keeping his eyes 
on my palm. Now he started back and pointed to it. 1 
saw nothing and he only played louder and danced more 
wildly. Suddenly he dropped the flute but continued his 
dance, chanting as he whirled. He pointed to the paper 
again and then swiftly clapped his hand down upon it 
264 


BOMBAY, WESTERN GATEWAY OF INDIA 

and pulled up three great snakes, which raised their 
hooded heads, darted out their tongues, and squirmed and 
wriggled as he held them up before me. I started back, 
for they were the deadly cobras. There were four other 
people with me, and we tried our best to ascertain how the 
thing was done. One of our party stood upon a chair and 
overlooked the juggler as he snatched up the snakes, but 
could not see where they came from. I only know that 
he had them and that they were so big that it was with 
difficulty that he crowded them into a little round basket 
the size of a peck measure. 


265 


CHAPTER XXIX 


THE TOWERS OF SILENCE ON MALABAR HILL 

O N MALABAR HILL, five miles away from 
downtown Bombay, are the finest homes of the 
city. The Britisher living in India wants noth¬ 
ing better than a bungalow on this palm-clad 
ridge cooled by the winds from the Arabian Sea. And yet 
the blue sky overhead is full of vultures and any morning 
he may find on his veranda the fingerbone of a baby or a 
man's big toe, which some carrion bird has dropped there 
in its flight. For here also are the Parsee Towers of Silence, 
upon which the fire worshippers of India lay the naked 
bodies of their dead to be eaten by the fowls of the air. 

Of all the religions of this land of religions it seems 
to me that in many respects the faith of these Parsees is 
the strangest. Their name, meaning “Persians,” is derived 
from the fact that in the eighth century they fled from 
Persia, which was then overrun by the conquering Moslem 
Arabs, and came down to Sanjan about sixty miles north 
of Bombay. Here they were kindly received by the 
Hindus. From their home country they brought the 
beliefs of Zoroaster, to which, with modifications, they 
have clung ever since. 

Zoroastrianism was the religion of the Wise Men who 
followed the Star to the stable when Christ was born at 
Bethlehem. Five hundred years before that it was the guid¬ 
ing belief of Cyrus the Great of Persia. When Jerusalem 

266 


THE TOWERS OF SILENCE 


was taken by Nebuchadnezzar, Zoroaster was a boy of 
twelve. He lived in northern Persia and the old Persian 
writings chronicle many miracles of his birth and life. 
After a period of preparation, he received at thirty a 
spiritual revelation of the one God, and came forth to re¬ 
form the ancient creed of Persia. He was tempted again 
and again by the spirit of darkness, but always came off 
triumphant. His teachings spread all over Persia, where 
they were supreme until the Mohammedans suppressed 
them by persecution. 

A white-haired, silver-bearded old Parsee here at Bom¬ 
bay tells me that one of the chief elements of Zoroastrian¬ 
ism is a conviction that the soul is immortal, and that all 
human beings are free moral agents, and therefore re¬ 
sponsible. The Parsees believe in rewards and punish¬ 
ments, and that in this life we settle our future existence. 
As to the Parsee God, he is called the Doer, the Creator, 
and the Governor of the World. He is the emblem of 
light, and for this reason when the Parsee worships he 
stands before the sacred flame or turns his face to the sun 
as the symbol of the Almighty. 

We have often heard the Parsees called worshippers of 
fire. In a sense this is correct, for they have fire always 
burning in their temples, but they worship it, as one of 
them told me, only as an emblem of the sun, the source 
of all life and hence the visible representation of God. 
The fire in the temples at Bombay is said to have been 
kept alive for hundreds of years. The hallowed flame was 
brought from the altars of Persia, where it was first lighted 
centuries before the Mohammedans conquered that 
country. With it the Parsees kindled their altars at San- 
jan and later still they brought it with them to Bombay. 

267 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


Strangers are not permitted to see this fire. The 
Parsees regard their worship as too sacred to be viewed 
by outsiders, and they make no display of gorgeous 
churches or elaborate ceremonies. In some of their new 
temples they have started the fires by coals from a tree or 
building struck by lightning, and have fed them with 
chips and dust of sandalwood. I understand that they 
will not spit in a fire or blow out a light. For a long 
time many of them would not smoke tobacco, and some 
of the most orthodox have refused to serve in the fire de¬ 
partment, not wishing to sin by putting out fires. 

This worship of fire is by no means original with the 
Parsees. Our own ancestors of the long ago were worship¬ 
pers of fire as representing the lightning and the sun. 
The Hindus had a fire god called Agni, and bowed down 
to it as a means of purification. Sacred fire is a feature 
of many of their domestic rites to-day, and at their wed¬ 
dings the bride and groom walk around a fire lighted by 
a priest. The Grand Mogul, Akbar, made his own holy 
flame by igniting a piece of cotton by the rays of the sun 
shining through a crystal lens, and all the fires of his house¬ 
hold were started in that way. 

The Parsee method of disposing of their dead is an out¬ 
growth of their reverence for fire. Fire is too consecrated 
to be defiled with a corpse. By the tenets of Zoroaster, 
not only fire, but earth and water also must never be thus 
polluted. So the Parsees lay the bodies of their dead on 
towers out under the sky and the vultures pick them to 
the bone. 

Malabar Hill, where the Towers of Silence stand, rises 
almost straight up from the sea. The place of the dead is 
covered with a beautiful garden and you walk up to it 
268 


THE TOWERS OF SILENCE 


over well-paved roads shaded by tropical trees and 
bordered with flowers and shrubs. Winding through this 
luxuriant vegetation you reach at last a point from 
whence you can see far out over the Arabian Sea, and 
turning landward can view the whole of Bombay. Here 
among the trees at one side, shut off by an iron railing 
so that none but the priests may enter, are five circular 
towers as white as the bones that lie on their tops. 

Each tower is about twenty-five feet in height and ninety 
feet in diameter. It is crowned with a grating which 
slopes toward the centre, where there is a well connected 
by drains with the sea. A small tower is reserved for the 
bodies of suicides. In each tower there are certain divi¬ 
sions for the different classes of the dead. One section 
is devoted to the bodies of men, another to those of women, 
and a third, the part nearest the well, to the corpses of 
children. 

The bodies are carried into the towers by two bearded 
men dressed all in white and known as the carriers of the 
dead. At every funeral they take the remains and, en¬ 
tering the tower, walk up a flight of steps, and place the 
naked corpse in its proper section. After the flesh has 
been devoured by the birds, which do their gruesome work 
in less than an hour, the skeleton is left to bleach in the hot 
sun. When the bones are dry the carriers of the dead take 
tongs and throw them into the well, where they are left to 
crumble to dust. 

These towers are well drained. The heavy rains of the 
tropics fall upon them, but the water goes off into the sea 
and there are filters below them filled with charcoal so 
that all is kept clean. Indeed, the bone dust accumulates 
so slowly that it has taken forty years to cover the bottom 
269 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


to a depth of five feet. There is absolutely no bad odour 
about this strange cemetery. 

1 shall never forget my visit to the Towers of Silence. 
None but the Parsees are supposed to go close to them and 
it was through a Parsee of high rank that I gained ad¬ 
mittance to the enclosure. With one of the sextons, I 
made my way about through the paths of a park com¬ 
prising perhaps sixty acres of trees and flowers. I was 
shown the Parsee temple and then taken to a place where 
I could get a view of the towers. 

Each seemed to me a huge cylinder of white with a frieze, 
or coping, of big black birds. As I watched, the birds 
sprang into life. They raised their heads and craned 
their necks, and 1 thought they must imagine us corpse 
bearers. A moment later, a funeral made its way up the 
hill, and 1 saw that the vultures were gazing at it. In 
front came the two carriers of the dead, bearing upon 
their shoulders the body of a baby, which was clad in 
white. The carriers had their faces covered, and behind 
them came mourners in white clothing. All Parsees walk 
to their funerals, which are the same for every class and 
condition. 

“Naked we came into the world and naked we must 
depart from it,” said my old Parsee guide. “The bones 
of us all go into these reservoirs, and the flesh of rich and 
poor feed the same vultures.” 

As the procession drew near the birds grew excited. They 
flapped their wings and flew from one side of the tower 
to the other. Because of the slope of the grating I could 
not see the little body as it was stripped and laid in its 
place. Such sights are visible only to the carriers, but I 
could tell when it was exposed by the flapping of the wings 
270 



In the midst of the fashionable residence section of Bombay rise the low 
stone structures on which the Parsees expose the bodies of their dead to be 
devoured by vultures, for in their eyes, fire, earth, and water are too sacred 
to be polluted by corpses. 






The Parsee women, descendants of the fireworshippers of ancient Persia, 
are the prettiest women of India. Unlike the Moslem and high-caste 
Hindu ladies, they are neither veiled nor kept in seclusion. 




THE TOWERS OF SILENCE 


of the vultures as they hurried over to the tower. The 
sight was a horrible one, but after all is this so much worse 
than our way of disposing of the dead? There is a move¬ 
ment among the more advanced of the Parsees to give up 
this practice, which has prevailed among them for cen¬ 
turies. They do not regard applied electricity as fire and 
I understand that at least some of them have been ne¬ 
gotiating with an American company for the purchase 
of an electric crematory. I am sure such an innovation 
will be viewed with horror by the strictest of the Parsees. 

The Parsee sect is managed by a punchayat, or council of 
elders, which controls more property than Trinity Church 
in New York. It has charge of all the church funds, 
amounting to more than two million dollars, and real 
estate holdings of great value. The Parsees are conserva¬ 
tive and want to keep out of the fold converts not of pure 
Parsee blood. For example, the French wife of a member 
of a millionaire Parsee family became converted to her 
husband’s religion and was received into the membership. 
Thereupon the bigots of the faith objected, and the 
trustees of the punchayat decided that converts might not 
worship in the Parsee temples or be laid in the Towers of 
Silence to have their flesh torn from their bodies by the 
vultures. The French lady stood upon her rights, bring¬ 
ing suit in the courts of Bombay to enforce them. The 
judges decided in her favour, and converts now come into 
the church under certain restrictions. One of the justices 
suggested that the outsiders might have separate temples 
and towers, and another protested that the verdict might 
open the church to undesirables and ruin the prosperity of 
the Parsee community. 

There are only a little more than a hundred thousand of 


271- 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


the Parsees, but they are a rich and powerful class. 
Four fifths of them are in the Bombay Presidency, while 
the rest are scattered throughout India. Their combined 
wealth aggregates untold millions. They are the financial 
kings of India and have to be considered in every big busi¬ 
ness undertaking in the country. They are noted for 
both their integrity and their progressive ness, and just 
now, when India is stirred up by the Nationalists, the 
fact that they stand by the government is of immense 
importance to Great Britain. 

The Parsees are well educated, and many of them are 
graduates of colleges and universities. They maintain 
large schools for boys and girls at Bombay and other 
places in Hindustan for the education, not only of their 
own children, but of those of other creeds if they care to 
attend. One of the finest institutions in India is the 
Science Institute at Bangalore, in the native state of My¬ 
sore, which was founded by a wealthy Parsee to provide 
scientific training for young people. 

Charity appears to be the very essence of the Parsee 
religion. From one end to the other India swarms with 
beggars, but not one of the mendicants is a Parsee. The 
whole sect would consider itself disgraced if one of their 
number should be reduced to begging. They give largely 
to public enterprises, and have spent millions on institu¬ 
tions for their own people. For instance, when one of the 
family of Wadias died, his bequests for the amelioration of 
the condition of the poor and the promotion of education 
among the Parsees amounted to more than five million 
dollars. 

I drove to-day past the Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy Institute, 
founded seventy-five years ago by a Parsee of that name. 
272 


THE TOWERS OF SILENCE 


He began life as a poor boy and died worth ten million 
dollars, a great part of which went to charity. He gave 
five million dollars to hospitals, colleges, and rest houses, 
and about one hundred thousand to this school. The 
government of India took charge of the gift and agreed 
to pay six per cent, upon it as a loan. Since then other 
Parsees have added to the endowment, and the capital of 
the institute is many times as large as when it was opened. 
The Parsees of Bombay are building sanitary houses for 
the poor of their communities,from which they expect only 
enough rent to get four per cent, on their investment. 

Such charities are not confined to the men. Rich Par- 
see widows have made gifts that compare with those of 
Mrs. Russell Sage, and there are Parsee women whose 
generosity ranks with that of Helen Gould Shepherd. 
For example, one of the women of the Petit family gave 
jewellery valued at nearly half a million dollars to found a 
girls’ orphanage. One of the Parsee givers of the past, 
whom we might compare with certain of our millionaire 
widows, was Motli Bai Wadia, who gave away a million 
and a half dollars in public charities, and almost two 
millions in private alms, and who built Bombay’s first 
hospital for native women. Notwithstanding these gifts, 
she left a big fortune to her descendants. 

The Parsees are much Europeanized and mingle with 
the British in the society of Bombay. Their women are 
not and have never been secluded, but go about just as 
freely as do our western wives and daughters, and have 
quite as dignified a position in their homes. 


273 


CHAPTER XXX 


INDIAN CAPTAINS OF INDUSTRY 

I HAVE just had a chat with one of the most progres¬ 
sive millionaires of all Asia. I refer to Sir Dorabji 
Tata, the head of the rich Tata family, and senior 
member of the Bombay firm of Tata Sons, Ltd. The 
Tatas own the Taj Mahal Hotel, the biggest in the Far 
East—and one of the most uncomfortable; they hold the 
majority of stock in the largest cotton mills of India; they 
have undertaken the greatest hydro-electric development 
in the country, and they run an iron and steel works em¬ 
ploying more than twenty-five thousand men. 

The Tata family is to Hindustan what the Mitsuis are to 
Japan, the Rothschilds to Europe, or the Morgans to the 
United States. They are. millionaires, who make their 
money breed like Australian rabbits, and Midases whose 
touch seems to turn all things to gold. Their ancestors 
were priests of Zoroaster, and are supposed to have de¬ 
scended from the ancient kings of Persia. The Tatas were 
driven out of that country with the other Parsees and in 
India they drifted away from the priesthood and went 
into trade. At the time of our Civil War the great-grand¬ 
father of the present head of the family was a government 
contractor. In his day he made and lost several fortunes 
and gave large sums to charity and the support of his 
religion. 

Jamsetjee Nusserwanji Tata, the grandfather of the man 
274 


INDIAN CAPTAINS OF INDUSTRY 


with whom I talked to-day, came to Bombay as a boy 
and engaged in general trading. He made money and 
invested in some of India's first cotton mills, and later on 
established spinning and weaving plants that revolu¬ 
tionized cotton manufacturing in India. He built mills 
not only at Bombay, but in different parts of the interior, 
and handled them so well that the stockholders got a 
large return on their money every year as well as stock 
dividends aggregating millions. From the earnings of one 
mill he paid back in profits more than thirteen times the 
original capital and he founded other enterprises equally 
successful. This man became a multi-millionaire and 
when he died he had interests in all parts of India, as well 
as in England, and in China, Japan, and other countries 
of the Orient. 

The scheme for furnishing hydro-electric power to the 
cotton mills of Bombay originated with J. N. Tata, though 
it was put through by his son and grandsons. This de¬ 
velopment, which is constantly undergoing expansion, is 
in some respects one of the biggest water-power under¬ 
takings of the world. Its success is due largely to the 
Western Ghats, hills that rise two thousand feet above sea 
level within a short distance of the Arabian Sea. When 
the monsoon winds sweep inland from theocean,the moun¬ 
tains force them to break into tremendous rains, while the 
table lands behind the range form an ideal catchment 
area. 

At the suggestion of an Englishman, David Gostling, Mr. 
Tata got foreign experts to investigate the possibilities of 
a water-power project. This they did for six long years, 
during which both Tata and Gostling died. But the Tata 
heirs continued with the plan, formed a syndicate, and at 


275 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


last got the scheme under way. Now the rainfall stored 
in three lakes in the hills furnishes hydro-electric energy 
for lighting Bombay and running her mills and street 
cars. The development was carried on largely by Ameri¬ 
can engineers, and the American formerly in charge is now 
a partner in the Tata firm. 

Most important perhaps among all of the enterprises 
mentioned is the Tata Iron and Steel Company. I 
learned something of it in my interview with Sir Dorabji 
Tata, in his Bombay office. The steel works are situated 
at Jamshedpur, about one hundred and fifty miles from 
Calcutta, and not far from beds of iron ore and coal. The 
plant was built by an American engineering firm of New 
York, and to-day some fifty of the most important execu¬ 
tives are Americans. 

The Tata company is one of the largest iron and steel 
corporations of Asia, and its future appears almost un¬ 
limited. India now consumes something like 700,000 
tons of steel every year, much of which is imported. It 
annually buys about $50,000,000 worth of railway steel 
and rolling stock, as well as machinery, hardware and 
tools to the amount of more than $110,000,000. The 
government requirements alone are enormous. It oper¬ 
ates eighty-seven large railway shops, and arsenals and 
dockyards employing altogether more than 100,000 men. 
All of these works feed on iron and steel. In addition, 
factories are now springing up in India, and they all need 
machinery. Besides the cotton mills, there are jute mills, 
sugar mills, and iron and brass foundries. At present 
Great Britain furnishes about all the machinery and mill 
equipment, most of the railway materials and the greater 
part of the iron and steel; but it seems certain that India 
27 6 


INDIAN CAPTAINS OF INDUSTRY 

will ultimately do far more of her own iron and steel 
manufacturing, thus providing employment for thou¬ 
sands of natives and increasing the wealth and prosperity 
of the country. 

As it is now, the Tata plant, which employs more than 
twenty-five thousand men, is the biggest single enterprise 
in all India, and the only plant making steel. But it 
cannot yet meet India’s requirements in steel rails, let 
alone supply the demand for other steel products. In 
fact, the combined output of the Tata plant and all other 
Indian iron works can take care of only a part of the 
available market. Consequently, there is plenty of room 
for expansion. 

I asked Sir Dorabji Tata to give me the history of the 
beginning of the enterprise at Jamshedpur. Said he: 

"Of course we investigated thoroughly before building 
the steel works. My father, you know, originated the idea. 
He took it up years ago with the hope of making this a 
great manufacturing nation. After some study of Eng¬ 
land he concluded that her industrial strength came from 
the development of her iron and coal. To find out whether 
India had similar resources he hired prospectors to go all 
over the peninsula. They found at last certain deposits 
that he thought might be used for pig iron. The available 
coal, however, was of a low grade and needed special treat¬ 
ment to fit it for coking. He offered prizes for the inven¬ 
tion of suitable processes and when they were developed, 
he proposed to the government that it grant him conces¬ 
sions for starting the industry. But he could get no satis¬ 
faction and was forced to drop the matter. Twenty years 
later he succeeded in interesting Lord George Hamilton, 
then Secretary of State for India. Lord George declared 
277 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 

that the government would be glad to aid him in such an 
undertaking, and so my father began his investigations 
anew, spending a hundred thousand dollars or more upon 
them in the last years of his life. We continued the work.” 

“What did you find?” 1 asked. 

“Much that no one imagined existed,” was the reply. 
“The Geological Survey had mentioned several iron 
deposits. We re-prospected the places designated until we 
had located deposits large enough for our purpose. My 
father went himself to the United States, where he engaged 
mining experts to come out and tell us whether it would 
pay to work the mines. The first deposits we examined 
were not far from Nagpur, and upon our arrival at that 
place we went into the Mineral Museum. As we looked 
at the specimens there, one of our American mining en¬ 
gineers observed some fine ore labelled with the location of 
the deposit. 

“We sent to the place and discovered there two great 
hills of almost solid iron. The ore was between sixty-five 
and seventy per cent, pure, superior to the best of your 
ores, and the equal of almost any in the world. We re¬ 
ported this to the government geologists who claimed there 
must be a mistake. So they sent out their own investiga¬ 
tors, who stated that the iron was even better than we had 
represented. 

“At the same time,” continued Mr. Tata, “we dis¬ 
covered deposits of good coking coal not far away, as well 
as limestone and the other essentials for making steel, and 
obtained concessions for the various deposits. The re¬ 
sults you know.” 

Sir Dorabji and a few other Parsees tried to get British 
capital interested in their scheme. But London’s shekels 
278 



The Parsee millionaires have done much to develop both the water¬ 
power and the cotton manufacturing that make Bombay the industrial 
capital of the Indian Empire. India now spins and weaves a considerable 
proportion of the cotton goods she requires. 







The Royal Yacht Club is the great social centre for the British and 
American elite of Bombay, but no Indian, not even the richest or most cul¬ 
tured of the native princes, has ever been invited inside its doors. 



Since Gandhi began to urge his countrymen to discard all phases of 
the “satanic” industrial civilization brought to India by the British, there 
has been a revival of interest in the ancient native handicrafts, particularly 
spinning and weaving. 









INDIAN CAPTAINS OF INDUSTRY 


were not forthcoming and finally the Parsees turned to 
their own countrymen. No such appeal for capital had 
ever been made in India before, but the native princes and 
men of wealth responded at once with ample funds, and 
from that day to this all the capital required by the com¬ 
pany as it has expanded has come out of Indian pockets. 
The Jamshedpur plant was opened for business just on the 
eve of the World War, and furnished steel rails for the 
military railways not only in Mesopotamia, but in Egypt, 
Palestine, and East Africa. 

Twelve years after the first stake was driven for the 
iron and steel town at Jamshedpur its population num¬ 
bered close to one hundred thousand. The Tatas are 
making a model industrial centre of their city, the plan¬ 
ning of which was entrusted to an Englishman. Another 
Englishman serves as a kind of city manager, but for the 
most part Indians are employed where they can do the 
work. There are only about two hundred positions in the 
plant held by British or Americans, who are needed as 
supervisors of the furnaces and rolling-mills and in posi¬ 
tions where special executive or mechanical abilities are 
required. Educated Bengalis and Madrasis, many of them 
Brahmans, are chiefly engaged in clerical, technical, and 
managerial work. Moslems from the Punjab, Pathans 
from the northwest border, and Sikhs are trained to do 
skilled manual labour. The bulk of the unskilled workers 
are Sontals, the sun-worshipping aboriginal inhabitants 
of the region, who as a rule are industrious and cheerful, 
though extremely ignorant and liable to violent outbursts 
of passion. 

“ Your works should succeed the better on account of the 
swadeshi movement/’ I said to the Parsee capitalist, re- 


279 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


ferring to the nationalist agitation for the use of made-in- 
India goods. 

“Our products will be favoured by the Indians on that 
account/' was the reply. “Our people will patronize 
home industries, and swadeshi goods will undoubtedly 
be purchased in preference to imports from abroad of the 
same quality and price.” 

At one time the Tatas seemed likely to have to meet stiff 
competition from the big Han-Yeh-Ping steel works at 
Hankow, China. But this company has not as good ore 
deposits as have the Tatas, and, besides, it got into 
difficulties. It borrowed a good deal of money from 
Japan, which had to be repaid by shipments of ore and pig 
iron to the Japanese who in this way got control of the 
only big iron and steel works in China. Japan looks to 
India also for some of her imports of pig iron. In a recent 
year we imported from India nearly twenty thousand tons 
of pig iron. These imports have given rise to considerable 
speculation as to India's future as an exporter of iron to 
America. She has inexhaustible supplies of cheap ore, and 
plenty of manganese, chromium, and coal. 

Big native enterprises like those of theTatas are bringing 
into circulation some of India's vast stores of hoarded 
wealth. This country has been called “the sink of pre¬ 
cious metals” and the “money graveyard of the world/* 
For twenty-five centuries gold and silver have been 
flowing into India to satisfy the craving of the people for 
tangible wealth to be stowed away in the earth, hidden in 
princely treasure vaults, or turned into bracelets, anklets, 
and other personal adornments. There are cases where 
natives have died of famine rather than break into their 
hoards for the price of food. 

280 


INDIAN CAPTAINS OF INDUSTRY 


Records kept by the British for nearly a century show 
that more than fifteen hundred million dollars' worth of 
gold has gone into India above what has come out again. 
Since Columbus discovered America India has absorbed 
one fourth of the world’s silver production, and years ago 
an economist estimated the wealth locked up in the golden 
trinkets and silver adornments of the people of India at 
two thousand million dollars. Just think what such sums 
would mean if turned over to industrial undertakings! 

As for the capital frozen up in precious stones, there 
seems no way even to guess at the amount. I venture 
that a view of the treasures of the native princes would 
convince any one of the great size of the total. Among 
them are some of the world’s most famous diamonds 
and one ruler has a carpet of pearls, eight by ten feet in 
dimensions. Many years ago this was valued at five 
million dollars; it is worth much more now. I have heard 
that London bullion dealers carry an assortment of beauti¬ 
fully polished gold bars especially to satisfy the wants 
of the Indian princes. But now the Indians are showing 
a tendency to put their money to work for them and their 
country rather than to keep it hidden away. India appears 
to be at the beginning of a great industrial expansion, the 
pioneer work in which has already been done by the Tatas 
and other wealthy Parsees. 


CHAPTER XXXI 


JOHN BULL'S BIGGEST POLICE JOB 

M ANY government officials tell me that the army 
is John Bull's best paying asset in India. It is 
kept up without taxing his people at home, and 
it gives him a big fighting force which he has 
used in South Africa, in China, in Egypt and the Sudan, 
in Tibet and Afghanistan, and in France and the Near 
East, as well as in other parts of the world. Recently 
there were units of the Indian army serving the British 
Empire in Palestine, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and colonial 
stations. These troops were, however, paid from the 
British exchequer while outside of India. 

John Bull's hold upon India is the wonder of colonial 
governments. He has here a mixture of the most turbu¬ 
lent and the most peaceful peoples on earth. He has 
some whose religion teaches them it is their duty and busi¬ 
ness to prey on and plunder their fellows; and millions 
who have feuds with one another and who would fight to 
the death except for the strong arm of the British. 

Nevertheless, Great Britain controls and protects the 
country with a military force averaging a little less than 
one soldier to each thousand people. The whole army, 
including both British and natives, numbers only about 
three hundred thousand men. The ratio between the 
British and the native troops is ten English to twenty- 
five Indian soldiers. 


282 


JOHN BULL’S BIGGEST POLICE JOB 

One reason the British can maintain control with so few 
troops in such a large territory and among so many alien 
people is the fact that of India’s three hundred and twenty 
millions, only about twenty-five millions have to-day any 
strong warlike spirit. It is from these that the Indian 
army is chiefly recruited. Among them are the Gurkhas, 
the Rajputs, and the Sikhs; the Mahrattas, mountain 
people of the western coast; the Jats, strict Hindus; and 
the Pathans of Afghanistan. A Pathan infantryman was 
the first Indian to be decorated with the Victoria Cross, 
which, until the World War, had never been granted to 
a native soldier. 

Some of the best of the fighters are the little Gurkhas 
from Nepal and Sikkim. They are on the average only 
about five feet tall and an exception to the minimum en¬ 
listment height of five feet four inches is made in their 
case. After the Gurkhas were thoroughly beaten by the 
British just about the time of our War of 1812, they con¬ 
ceived a great respect for their conquerors and enlisted in 
large numbers in the Indian Army, in which they have 
made fine soldiers. The Germans have cause to remem¬ 
ber hand-to-hand trench warfare in which the Gurkhas 
used their terrible kukris, crescent-shaped, razor-edged 
knives, against the foes of Great Britain. 

In contrast to the little Gurkhas are the tall Rajputs, 
whose name is derived from the Sanskrit for “King’s 
Sons,” or “Men of Royal Descent.” They are a survival 
of the ancient military caste and are said to trace their 
ancestry back to the Sun dynasty. The Moguls had a 
hard time subduing them. They are fine, muscular fel¬ 
lows with fierce moustaches turned upward and some¬ 
times looped behind the ears. 

283 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


Among the Rajput warrior princes was Sir Partab Singh, 
the regent of Jodhpur. When the World War broke 
out he was about seventy years old, yet he offered his 
troops and his services. The Viceroy urged that a man 
the age of the prince should stay at home, but the 
warrior replied that he would sit on the steps of the Vice¬ 
regal Lodge at Simla, refusing food and drink until he was 
permitted to go to France with his men. Convinced that 
the old man meant what he said, and that such a per¬ 
formance would cause a commotion throughout India, the 
Viceroy consented and not long after Sir Partab Singh 
led his Lancers overseas. 

The Sikh soldiers generally stand out because they are 
cleanly in person and usually taller than the other Indians. 
They wear immense turbans of white or some light colour, 
some of which bear the sharp-edged steel quoit that their 
forefathers used to hurl at their enemies in battle. The 
Sikhs number some two millions and come from the Pun¬ 
jab. The sect was founded in the fifteenth century by a 
peasant religious teacher who proclaimed a pure form of 
Hinduism, denouncing both idolatry and the caste system. 
During the next three hundred years the Sikhs became 
a powerful military order, whose fighting men regarded 
death on the battlefield as a passport to salvation and 
never showed their backs to an enemy. For a time during 
the early days of British occupation they gave a great 
deal of trouble, but later settled down and became the 
most loyal soldiers in the Indian Army. One of the serious 
phases of the present unrest in India is the fact that 
through the trouble at Amritsar in April, 1919, the British 
lost the friendship of the Sikhs. 

Because of some disorders in the district, Sir Michael 
284 


JOHN BULL’S BIGGEST POLICE JOB 

O’Dwyer, governor of the Punjab, obtained from the 
Viceroy a proclamation of martial law. All gatherings 
were forbidden, suspects were imprisoned, and there was 
generally a bad state of affairs. The crowning horror oc¬ 
curred at Amritsar, the stronghold of the Sikhs. About 
two thousand men and women were gathered in a meet¬ 
ing in a square surrounded by tall houses, when Brigadier- 
General Dyer arrived with about a hundred soldiers. 
These he posted on a ridge commanding the shut-in space 
and after ordering the mob to disperse, told his men to 
shoot. A fearful scene ensued, and the place was strewn 
with wounded and corpses before General Dyer gave the 
order to cease firing. According to the official accounts, 
three hundred and seventy-nine were killed and several 
times that number were wounded. Governor O’Dwyer 
wired his general that he had done exactly right, but later 
the British government censured the conduct of both men 
and retired them from further service. Still, General Dyer 
was presented with a hundred and fifty thousand dollars 
raised by public subscription from friends and admirers 
and in some quarters he was lauded as a saviour and 
protector of the British. 

The “Punjab wrongs” decided Gandhi to start his 
campaign of non-violent non-cooperation, which has 
made John Bull’s police job in India so extremely difficult. 
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born of well-to-do 
parents and had a university education in London. His 
father and grandfather before him were leaders of the 
people and he began his career as a champion of the 
Indians in South Africa where he practised law for a 
number of years. When the World War broke out Gandhi 
and his wife, whom he had married when he was twelve, 
285 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


went to London to organize an Indian ambulance corps. 
Like many other leaders, he hoped that in recognition of 
India's services to the Allied cause the British would 
grant self-government in India as soon as the war was 
over. When this was denied, there was a burst of indigna¬ 
tion all over India and Gandhi became the leader of the 
agitation for swaraj, or home rule. 

The way to gain this end, Gandhi thought, was by 
a policy of non-cooperation. Non-cooperation meant, 
among other things, giving up titles of honour and honor¬ 
ary offices under the British government, taking no part in 
government loans, boycotting government schools, refus¬ 
ing to accept any military or civil post, and conform¬ 
ing to the doctrine of swadeshi, or patronage of home 
industry.. Gandhi considered swadeshi the most im¬ 
portant of all. He declared that English manufactures 
had ruined local industries and were draining the re¬ 
sources of India at the rate of more than twenty million 
dollars a year. He reminded his fellow-countrymen of 
how in the days of the East India Company the native 
handwoven cloths had competed so successfully with the 
British goods that in 1701 the sale of India’s calicoes in 
England was forbidden by law. Then when the power 
loom and spinning jenny were invented Hindustan be¬ 
came an importer of cotton goods and dependent on the 
British mills. Go back, said Gandhi, to the old hand¬ 
weaving crafts and wear only cloths made in India. His 
emissaries went about setting up their looms in the market 
places and singing the old spinning songs of India as they 
wove before the crowds. A certain kind of cap of coarse 
homespun, or khaddar, became the sign of Gandhi’s 
followers, who multiplied all over the land. Women, 
286 



Day or night, the British flag has never come down from the staff on 
the ruins of the Residency at Lucknow since it floated there throughout 
the eighty-seven-day siege of the garrison by native mutineers in 1857. 







Most important of the “Gates of India” on the northwest frontier 
is the strongly guarded Khyber Pass through which in times gone by, 
conquering armies of Aryans, Tartars, Moguls, Persians, and Afghans 
have invaded the plains of Hindustan. 














JOHN BULL'S BIGGEST POLICE JOB 

even wives of well-to-do Indians, adopted saris of khaddar. 
Thousands of yards of imported cottons were burned on 
the docks at Bombay. 

Although Gandhi stood firm against violence, after a 
time riots began to break out. Finally he was tried and 
sentenced to a term of six years’ imprisonment. On ac¬ 
count of ill health, he was freed early in 1924, after he 
had served but one third of his term. 

During his imprisonment the non-cooperation move¬ 
ment waned and when he was freed, though he was still 
the adored spiritual leader of his countrymen, he was 
no longer their political dictator. Political leadership 
had passed to more practical men, who have continued to 
press for swaraj, or “ India for the Indians.” 

Among the native leaders there is great dissatisfaction 
with the way in which the army in India is financed and 
managed. They do not want it to be considered as a 
branch of the army of defence for the British Empire, and 
seek legislation to prevent its serving outside India. They 
maintain that it should be for the protection of India 
alone, and that, moreover, it should become more and 
more Indianized. As it is now, British officers have all 
the higher positions and Indian officers, no matter what 
their age or length of service, must often take orders from 
raw subalterns just out from “Home.” Steps have been 
taken toward satisfying the demands of the native leaders. 
King’s commissions have been granted to a number of 
native officers serving in the regular Indian Army and 
Indian cadets are now qualifying for commissions at the 
Royal Military College at Sandhurst, England. At Dehra 
Dun in the United Province has been established the 
Prince of Wales’ Royal Indian Military College, a pre- 
287 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


paratory military school for a limited number of Indian 
boys who may wish to go to Sandhurst. 

One item of army expense that the Nationalists espe¬ 
cially resent is the cost of sending the British soldiers up to 
the hills in the hot weather. This, the government 
maintains, is absolutely essential as the British are not 
accustomed to the Indian climate and cannot keep in 
good condition without this change. The government also 
justifies its expenditure of almost half the Indian budget 
for the maintenance of the army by pointing to the fact 
that nowhere else in the world is a population of three 
hundred and twenty millions defended at so low a cost. 

As to what the army means to India, a general whom I 
met at Calcutta said: 

“If the British rule were removed for a week, India 
would relapse into a state of anarchy. The Mohamme¬ 
dans would sweep down on the Hindus, and the Gurkhas 
would loot and massacre the people of Bengal. The only 
salvation for India is in a strong power in control.” 

And not long ago one of the northern native chiefs said 
in this connection: 

“I should like to see the British leave. If they did I 
would take half-a-dozen regiments, and within three weeks 
there would not be a two-anna bit left on the plains of the 
Ganges. We would loot the Bengalis and capture their 
women. I tell you it would be sport.” 

Undoubtedly without the British the modern structure 
of trade and distribution that has been established would 
break down. Disaster and famine would follow, for 
example, if the irrigation systems, port works, and rail¬ 
roads were to become disorganized. At present, at any 
rate, it looks as if the British alone were capable of han- 
288 


JOHN BULL'S BIGGEST POLICE JOB 

dling the situation and keeping a balance between the 
various princes, creeds, and peoples. 

I am told that the agitators do all they can to stir up 
sedition in the army. Anarchistic publications are smug¬ 
gled into the native barracks, and attempts are made to 
create dissatisfaction among the troops. Though the 
soldiers are loyal and stick to the British, nevertheless 
they have been thinking hard since the Russo-Japanese 
War. To the Oriental it was a great surprise that the 
Japanese beat the Russians. It was the defeat of the 
white man by the brown man. Then the question arose 
among the fighting classes of India: "If the Japanese were 
victorious why should not the Indians be, too, in some 
great war of the future?" Yet the Indian troops stood 
by the British in the World War, to the great surprise and 
chagrin of the Germans. As a German newspaper of 
1915 put it: “We expected that the whole of India would 
revolt at the first sound of the guns in Europe, but be¬ 
hold, thousands and tens of thousands of Indians are fight¬ 
ing with the British against us." 

In addition to the army, India has a large civil police. 
Every town has its local watchmen, every city is patrolled 
by police, and, on the whole, order is fairly well kept. 
The watchmen are under the eyes of the headmen of their 
villages, and major crimes are reported to the district 
authorities. In the big towns there are police com¬ 
missioners and at the stations lists are kept of released 
convicts, suspected characters, and habitual offenders. 
Such persons are carefully watched and when they move 
their records follow them. 

Upon such lists are the names of the descendants of the 
thugs and others who made crime a business. The 

289 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


Kuril Marus, professional thieves and pickpockets, still 
flourish. They rob houses, not by entering through the 
doors or windows, but by digging through the mud walls. 
In many cases, I have been told, individuals employ a 
member of the thieves' caste as a watchman, holding 
him responsible for any theft that occurs. As a rule, 
he makes no attempt to keep awake, but sleeps on 
the premises, for he knows that it is contrary to caste 
rules to rob a place where one of the thieves' caste is on 
guard. 

The thugs have about disappeared. This clan of 
assassins first strangled and then robbed their victims, 
who were offered to Kali, their patron goddess. They 
had maps of the country on which were indicated murder 
stations, or places where a thug could kill with least 
danger of discovery. They murdered by wholesale. 
In one of the trials a certain thug confessed that he had 
been engaged in nine hundred assassinations. 

The road poisoners of to-day are said to be the de¬ 
scendants of or allied to the thugs. They work in small 
gangs, following pilgrims and travellers and administer¬ 
ing poison so that they may be able to rob. One of the 
most common drugs used is nux vomica, and another is 
the native dhatura, which produces insensibility and death. 
The latter, which comes from a plant common throughout 
the country, is one of the famous poisons of ancient In¬ 
dia, and kills without leaving trace of the cause of death. 

Poisoning has always flourished in India. The legends 
of the gods are full of the custom, and love charms and 
death charms may still be bought. The tanners used to 
poison cattle for the sake of their hides by placing arsenic 
in their feeding troughs; and within recent times an at- 


290 



Even the poor seller of live peacocks has a lower caste porter to help 
him in handling the birds. Peacocks are native to Ceylon and India, 
where the young birds are considered a table delicacy. 




Many Europeans spend their summers in houseboats along the Jhelum 
River in Kashmir. In the valley grow most of the vegetables of the 
western countries, as well as pears, peaches, apples, and cherries equal to 
our best. 



Nowhere does one get such service as in India, where a British hostess 
has three servants to one “at home,” but housekeeping is complicated 
by the caste rules which limit the duties any one domestic is willing to 
perform. 











JOHN BULL'S BIGGEST POLICE JOB 

tempt was made to poison an army official with diamond 
dust mixed with arsenic. 

However, law and order are now better established in 
India than in any other country of Asia, with the excep¬ 
tion of Japan. There are courts everywhere, and every 
native has the right to bring suit. The Hindus are fond 
of litigation, and spend freely in defending their rights. 
Something like two million civil cases are instituted each 
year. The civil justices and the majority of the magis¬ 
trates are natives, and the native lawyers, many of whom 
are graduates of the universities, are both able and effi¬ 
cient. There is a regular system of appeal courts, and there 
are also supreme high courts, from which appeals may be 
made to the privy council in England. 

I have been told that two facts alone prove how well 
John Bull has handled his police job in India. One is that 
for more than one hundred and fifty years no conquering 
army has swept down through the gaps in the Himalayas; 
the other, that the natives generally prefer to be tried 
by a British rather than an Indian judge. 


291 


CHAPTER XXXII 


HUSBAND HUNTING AND THE SOCIAL TUG OF WAR 

HE British in India are almost as provincial as 



the people of London and seem to think theirs 


is the only nation on earth. At a dinner in 


^ Government House at Rangoon, the charming 
lady beside me was the daughter of an important official, 
and, from the British standpoint, well educated. When 
she learned that I was from the United States, she said 
she knew all about our country from her brother, who had 
just travelled through it. 

“Where did he go?” I asked. 

“He landed in Montreal and rode for days across 
country to Vancouver. That is a big city, the chief 
place on the west of your continent. When he came back 
he stopped in another large place, called Chicago. He 
visited most of the settlements of the United States, and 
remained a long time in one at the north. I wonder if 
you have ever heard of it? He called it Minnie some¬ 
thing.” 

“You must mean Minneapolis?” said I. 

“ I think so. I knew it had something to do with fruit.” 

“ I did not say Minne-apples—but Minne-ap-o-lis.” 

“Yes, I think it was Minneapolis. I know the first 
word was Minnie. Is it much of a place?” 

Whereupon, I told her that Minneapolis was one of the 
greatest cities of the world, that it was the flour barrel 


292 


HUSBAND HUNTING 


of John Bull, and that it had been feeding the English for a 
generation or more. At this she raised her eyebrows, and 
I could see that she did not believe me. 

My pride received another blow the other day when I 
spoke to a minor official of the wealth of our great West 
and referred to Chicago and its big banking houses. As 
I started the man interrupted me by asking in a surprised 
way: “And do they have banks in Chicago?” 

As a rule the British officials in the Indian Empire are 
men of fine education. Most of them are graduates of 
Oxford or Cambridge, and many are officers of the British 
Army. The majority come from the better classes of 
society, and some from the nobility. As to things Indian 
they are well posted; and nowhere will you find a civil 
service with higher standards. The average official cer¬ 
tainly knows his job; yet he appears abysmally ignorant 
of things beyond it. For example, one day I was talking 
in Calcutta with a prominent Britisher with a Sir to his 
name. He was speaking of the enormous irrigation 
schemes of the British in India, and then asked me if we 
had irrigated lands in the United States, saying he could 
not see why a land so well watered should need them. I 
described the Rocky Mountain plateau and mentioned the 
vast sums we have spent on reclaiming the western deserts. 
I referred also to irrigation in Canada, especially to the 
great undertaking at Calgary, where the Canadian Pacific 
railroad turned the Bow River upon fifteen hundred 
thousand acres of arid lands and made them yield like the 
fertile valley of the Nile. Upon that the Britisher ex¬ 
claimed: 

“ Indeed! I thought Canada was a wet country! Fifteen 
hundred thousand acres! I had no idea there were any 


293 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


such works in the world! I wonder if you are certain as 
to your figures?” 

“I know, for I have been there,” said I. And His 
Excellency was polite enough to pretend to believe me. 

The English have brought with them to India their 
love of sports. Every city has its clubs, and the larger 
places have race tracks, polo grounds, and golf courses. 
Native teams sometimes take part in matches, especially 
polo, which originated long ago in India and is still sup¬ 
ported by the rajahs and other wealthy Indians. Every 
big army station has its polo grounds and every officer 
who can afford the sport has his polo ponies. Horse 
races are run with gentlemen riding their own mounts. 
There is plenty of cricket and football, and as for hunting, 
that is one of the chief pastimes of the British. The 
game available includes everything from elephants and 
tigers to wild fowl and hare. The rajahs often organize 
hunts for their guests and to the man properly introduced 
in India every sort of diversion is open. 

During the season there are dinner parties, dances, and 
private theatricals at all army stations. It seems to me 
that on most matters of etiquette and dress, society here is 
even more rigid than in London. Every one who gives a 
dinner has to be careful how the guests are seated, or else 
those who should be last may come first. I have heard of 
one rajah who actually fainted because he was not placed 
as near the head of the table as he thought he should 
have been. The members of the Indian Civil Service 
and the army officers rank at the top. After them come 
the men of big business, manufacturers, lawyers, planters, 
and missionaries, but not the shopkeepers, who are of a 
class by themselves. 


294 


HUSBAND HUNTING 


The military and the civil classes are always jealous of 
each other, and every social centre is a hotbed of their 
rivalries. The position of a family is usually governed 
by the office held by the man of the house. In the higher 
positions the salaries are ample enough for one to entertain 
comfortably, but the military men are not so well paid 
as the civilians. Still, as a rule the army officers have 
larger clubs, more fun, and less formality. 

There are two social seasons in India—one in summer, 
when everyone who can possibly afford to do so goes to 
the highlands, especially to the summer capital, Simla, 
and the other in the winter. 

The winter season is so lively that it even attracts de¬ 
butantes and post-debutantes of Great Britain. There is 
a constant influx of young maids and old maids, several 
hundred well-bred girls coming out every year to stay with 
friends or relatives. These girls have good letters of 
introduction, which help them in the pursuit of husbands. 
Many of them, 1 understand, have been unsuccessful at 
home, and have been sent to India as a last resort. Some 
succeed in marrying and remain. Those who have to go 
back still unwed are spoken of as “returned empties.” 
It is said that at the first of each season a list of this 
invading army of husband hunters is made up by the 
gossips. Each girl is assayed, and her record, including 
the amount of her fortune, if any, is examined. All this 
information is set down and secretly passed around to the 
bachelors of the military and civilian sets. 

Among the social features of every winter are the masked 
and fancy-dress balls. I attended one such ball held 
at Government House in Calcutta. It seemed as if all 
the characters of the world had stepped from the pages of 


295 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


history and were going mad in the dance. I noticed a 
convict in chains gliding across the floor with a sombre- 
gowned sister of charity. There was Old Mother Goose, 
with her broom and cocked hat, arm in arm with a silk- 
clad Chinese mandarin. One girl was decked out as a 
carrier pigeon in a dress made of iridescent feathers. 
Another was labelled “Dresden china,” and a third was 
Galatea. One woman, covered with native newspapers, 
represented the press, and editorials about the prevalent 
unrest could be read on her back. And then there were 
Burmese noblemen, Japanese daimios, and priests of 
every religion. As I walked through the crowd, observ¬ 
ing the fresh, rosy faces of the English girls, I asked how 
they were able to keep their colour out here in the tropics. 
The reply was: 

“Oh, they spend nine months of the year in the Hima¬ 
layas, and come to Calcutta only during the winter. 
Some of them go home every few years, leaving us men 
here to work. I assure you, India is not a bad place for 
a woman, if she has an easy-going husband and money to 
spend.” 

They tell me that marriage is an expensive luxury in 
India, especially in the cities. House rents in Calcutta 
are high, an establishment of ten or twelve rooms in a good 
location costing about four hundred dollars a month. 
A small apartment of six rooms rents for one hundred and 
fifty dollars. Fashionable couples must entertain a good 
deal and every wife must have her long summer vacation 
at Darjeeling, Simla, or some other hill station. 

Keeping house in India seems cheap until you under¬ 
stand the conditions. Servants get almost nothing in 
comparison with domestics in the United States. One can 
296 


HUSBAND HUNTING 

hire fair cooks for ten dollars a month and housemen for 
seven. The trouble is that, mainly because of the caste 
rules, the Englishman has to employ a dozen servants in 
India where he needs one at home. The man who serves 
at the table will not wash the dishes; the man who washes 
the dishes will not make the beds; he who makes the beds 
will not sweep the floor or bring water; while the one who 
brings clean water will under no circumstances carry out 
the dirty water. The cook will not clean the pots and 
pans, and so it goes. If you keep horses, you must have a 
groom to each animal, and a man to cut grass for every 
two mounts. Every child must have its own nurse. The 
servants are nearly all men, the women acting only as 
ladies’ maids and sometimes as nurses. 

As to food, it is expensive when the quality is considered, 
Meats are invariably poor, and the fowl generally tastes 
like frayed rope. Eggs are occasionally fresh, although 
little larger than the big white alleys with which I used to 
play marbles. 

The ordinary meals here are tea, bread, and butter 
upon rising, which is called chota ha^ri, or “little break¬ 
fast.” There is a second breakfast at about ten o’clock, 
luncheon comes between two and three, and dinner 
along about eight. Late in the afternoon everyone takes 
his carriage or motor and goes driving, stopping at the 
clubs to listen to the music, to meet friends, and have tea. 

One of the big items of expense in India is the com¬ 
mission one must pay on all he buys. The ten-per-cent, 
rake-off demanded by servants often comes to more than 
their wages. If you order a cab your servant wants his 
commission, and if the cabman takes you to a native 
merchant he expects to get his percentage on what you 
297 


FROM BANGKOK TO BOMBAY 


purchase. The merchant makes his prices accordingly. 
The cook gets a commission on all the food that comes 
into the house, and the hostlers feed fat on your grass, 
corn, and oats. It is the same with the butler. He gets 
his tip from every native who calls upon you, and if your 
major domo is not feed your caller may cool his heels in¬ 
definitely and you will not get his card. 

In this connection I talked the other day with a British 
commissioner in one of the most important Indian prov¬ 
inces. Said he: 

“My very doorkeeper makes money off my official 
callers. When a native appears and asks to see the com¬ 
missioner, the doorkeeper will say that the sahib is busy. 
The native knows what he means and he will drop eight 
annas or a rupee into his hand. He is then introduced 
to the chief clerk, and he may have to pay five rupees 
more before he gets farther. If he does not offer to pay 
he will probably be told to call around to-morrow, and it 
may be days before he can get in to see me. We know 
what goes on, but cannot prevent it.” 

Very few natives are admitted to the circles of British 
society. The average Englishman regards the Indian as 
an inferior and will not allow him to be a member of his 
club, or to come to his house as a guest. This is especially 
true of the middle-class British business men, for the 
officials must not let their feeling of superiority become 
apparent. 

Not even Parsees may become members of the Bombay 
Yacht Club, one of the finest clubs in the British Empire. 
It admits no Indians, not even highly educated rajahs, and, 
in fact, I understand that no Indian has ever been invited 
inside its big, cool rooms. It was the extreme exclusive- 
298 



On the slopes above Simla, high in the foothills of the Himalayas, 
are homes of some of the British, who come here to escape the summer 
heat. 








Educated women, like this Hindu professor’s daughter, are beginning 
to play a part in the affairs of India. The number of girls in colleges, 
though still small, has greatly increased in recent years, and there is a 
well-organized movement for woman suffrage. 



HUSBAND HUNTING 


ness of this club, which is naturally somewhat offensive 
to leading Indians, that led Lord Willingdon, a recent 
governor of Bombay, to found the Willingdon Club. 
In this Parsees, Hindus, and Moslems, as well as English¬ 
men are eligible for membership. 

The British say that they are not wholly to blame for the 
social barriers between them and the upper-class Indians. 
With few exceptions the well-born Indian ladies are 
purdah and hence have no social contacts with men other 
than their husbands and members of their families. Fur¬ 
thermore, the Indians have, as a rule, such a poor opinion 
of women generally that the Westerner does not care to 
expose members of his family to their contempt. Again 
while a high-caste Hindu may play bridge all night with a 
party of Englishmen, he hesitates to eat at the same table 
with them and, if he does so, usually performs ceremonial 
ablutions to make up for having broken the rules of his 
caste. 

The Anglo-Indians, or half-breed offspring of Indians 
and Europeans, form a social class by themselves. Many 
are half Portuguese, others half French, and others half 
British. There are also Indian mulattoes and octoroons. 
But whatever the mixture of blood, it is considered a dis¬ 
grace by both native and foreigner, and such persons are 
not received in either British or Indian society. There 
are about two hundred thousand Anglo-Indians, many of 
whom are clerks. Some go into trade and make money, 
and now and then one rises to distinction. But always 
they flock by themselves, having their own society with 
customs patterned after those of the British. 


THE END 
299 


SEE THE WORLD 


WITH 

Frank G. Carpenter 

Doubleday, Page & Company, in response to the de¬ 
mand from Carpenter readers, are now publishing the 
complete story of CARPENTER’S WORLD TRAVELS, 
of which this book is the fourteenth in the series. Those 
now available are: 

/. “The Holy Land and Syria 7 

2. “From Tangier to Tripoli” 

Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, 
and Tripoli 

3. “ Alaska , Our Northern Wonderland” 

4. “ The Tail of the Hemisphere” 

Chile and Argentina 

5. “From Cairo to Kisumu” 

Egypt, the Sudan, 
and Kenya Colony 

6. “Java and the East Indies” 

Java, Sumatra, 

the Moluccas, New Guinea, 

Borneo, and the Malay Peninsula 


300 


SEE THE WORLD 


7. “France to Scandinavia” 

France, Belgium, 

Holland, Denmark, 

Norway and Sweden 

8. “Mexico” 

g. “ Australia , New Zealand , and Some Islands of the 
South Seas” 

Australia, New Zealand, 

New Guinea, the Samoas, 
the Fijis, and the Tongas 

10. “Canada” 

and Newfoundland 

11. “The Alps , the Danube, and the Near East” 

Switzerland, Italy, Czechoslovakia, 

Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Greece, 
Bulgaria, Rumania, and Turkey 

12. “ Lands of the Andes and the Desert” 

Colombia, Ecuador, 

Peru, and Bolivia 

13 . “Uganda to the Cape” 

Uganda, Zanzibar, Tanganyika 
Territory, Mozambique, Rhodesia, 

Union of South Africa 

24. “Bangkok to Bombay” 

Siam, French Indo-China, 

Burma, Hindustan 


301 


SEE THE WORLD 


Millions of Americans have already found Carpenter 
their ideal fellow traveller, and have enjoyed visiting with 
him all the corners of the globe. He tells his readers what 
they want to know, shows them what they want to see, 
and makes them feel that they are there. 

Carpenter’s World Travels is the only work of its 
kind. These books are familiar talks about the coun¬ 
tries and peoples of the earth, with the author on the spot 
and the reader in his home. No other one man has 
visited so much of the globe and written on the ground, in 
plain and simple language, the story of what he has found. 
Each book represents the painstaking study of a trained 
observer, devoting his life to the task of international 
reporting. Every volume is complete in itself; together 
they form the most vivid, interesting, and understandable 
picture of our modern world ever published. 


302 











INDEX 


Akbar, tomb of, at Sikandra, 216. 

Administrative divisions of India, 127. 

Afghanistan, a backward country, 155. 

Agra and the Taj Mahal, 225 et seq. 

Agriculture, backward condition of 
the farmer in India, 203 et seq. 

Agricultural machinery, rarely used 
in India, 206; attempts of agricul¬ 
tural stations to introduce, 210. 

Agricultural schools, and efforts for 
improvement, 208. 

Amarnath, cavern of, in Kashmir, 181. 

Amber, a ruined city of Jaipur, 248. 

Americans, as drillers, in the Burma oil 
fields, 91; in the Jamshedpur steel 
works, 276, 279. 

American goods, in Burma, 72. 

American trade with Bombay, 255. 

Amritsar, gathering of natives fired 
on by soldiery at, 285. 

Andaman Islands, pigmy natives of, 
152. 

Angkor, ancient ruined city of Cam¬ 
bodia, 44. 

Anglo-Indians, form a separate class, 
299. 

Animals, sacred, of Benares, 182. 

Animists, number of, in India, 125, 
152. 

Annam, comparative size, 41; a 
kingdom, but under French protec¬ 
tion, 43. 

Arakan Pagoda, Mandalay, 109. 

Army, Indian, at home and in the 
World War, 282 et seq. 

Ashes of Buddha, discovery of the 
Peshawar relics, 160. 

Assassins, Order of, a Moslem sect, 
222; their wholesale murders, 290. 

Automobiles, in Calcutta, 114. 

Automobiles, American, in Burma, 72. 

Bagging, large quantities shipped from 
Calcutta, 112. 

Baluchistan, a backward country, 155. 

Bankok, the capital of Siam, 3 et 
seq. 


Banyan tree, at Calcutta Botanical 
Gardens famous throughout the 
world, 113. 

Baptist Mission, its work in Burma, 
65 - 

Basket trick of the Indian jugglers, 263. 

Bathing in the Ganges, at Benares, 
189 et seq. 

Bazaars, of Mandalay, 98. 

Beasts, sacred, of Benares, 182. 

Begging bowls of the Buddhist monks, 
25, 36, 63. 

Benares, holy city of the Hindus, 178 
et seq.; the bathers and burning 
ghats of the Ganges, 189. 

Betel-nut, use of, by Siamese, 11; in 
Cochin China, 39. 

Bhutanis, one of the mountain tribes 
near Darjeeling, 137. 

Birthdays, influence naming of chil¬ 
dren in Burma, 107. 

Black Hole of Calcutta, tablet placed 
by Lord Curzon marking the site, 
115 - 

Bo Tree, at Buddha Gaya, 159. 

Body servants, essential to travel in 
India, 117. 

Bombay, industrial capital of Hin¬ 
dustan and western gateway of India, 
255 et seq. 

“Bombay duck,” a favourite fish 
preparation, 106. 

Botanical Gardens, Calcutta, 113. 

Boy Scouts in Siam, 20; in India, 200. 

Brick tea, production of, in China, 146. 

British, their ignorance as to the 
United States, 292. 

British rule in India, essential to the 
peace and prosperity of the country, 
129. 

Buddha, relics removed from Pesh¬ 
awar to Mandalay, 109; the man 
and his teachings, 158 et seq.; dis¬ 
covery of the relics at Peshawar, 
160; tooth of, at Kandy, Ceylon, 
164. 

Buddha Gaya, the holy, 159. 


INDEX 


Buddhism, shrines and rites of Siam, 
25 et seq.; revival of, 165. 

Buddhists, number of, in India, 125. 

Buddhist monasteries, built as a 
means of acquiring merit, 62. 

Buddhist monks, duties and religious 
observances, 25, 56, 63. 

Buffaloes, as milch animals, 205. 

Bulls, sacred, of Benares, 184. 

Burial alive, a trick of the yogis, 187. 

Burma and its capital, 46 et seq. 

Burma Oil Company, refineries at 
Syriam, 46, 92; controls entire oil 
production of the country, 89. 

Burning ghats of the Ganges, 189 
et seq. 

Calcutta, premier city of India, 112 
et seq. 

Cambodia, a French protectorate, 
35, 41, 44- 

Candles, at the Buddhist shrines, 56, 
93- 

Cannibals, of the Andanian Islands, 
•53- 

Caste, ignored in railway travel, 177; 
the slaves of, 194 et seq.; its influence 
on housekeeping expense, 297. 

Castes, number of, in India, 125. 

Cattle, sacred, of Benares, 184. 

Ceylon, the tea industry of, 141, 148. 

Charity, among the Parsees, 272. 

Cherrapunji, Bengal, wettest place 
in the world, 125. 

Child labour in Syrian oil refineries, 
93; in cotton mills of India, 261. 

Child marriages, among the Hindus, 
233 et seq. 

China, tea growing in, 142; produces 
the brick tea used in Russia, 146; 
introduces tea into Europe, 147. 

Chinese, in Siam, 21; in Saigon, 39, 40; 
in Rangoon, 47; their use of tea, 142. 

Cholon, large native town near Saigon, 
39- 

Christians, number of, in India, 125. 

Chromium, abundant in India, 280. 

Chulalongkorn, a progressive king of 
Siam, 17; his harem, 22; his elabo¬ 
rate funeral, 31. 

Civil police, organization and duties, 
289. 

Climate, diversified, of India, 124. 

Clubs, Indians excluded from British, 
298. 

Coal, deposits of, in Siam, 19; in 


Tongking, 41; abundant in India, 
280. 

Cochin China, one of France’s Orien¬ 
tal possessions, 35. 

Colleges, for sons of the native rulers, 
253. 

Congested housing conditions in 
Bombay, 258. 

Copper, rich deposits in Tongking, 41. 

Cotton, efforts of the government in 
improvement of quality and yield, 
209; main export of India is to 
Japan, 210; in the Bombay district, 
256; although produced in India for 
centuries present industry dates 
from time of American Civil War, 
259; present condition of the in¬ 
dustry, 260. 

Cow dung, the fuel of India, 204. 

Cremation, in Siam, 30. 

Curzon, Lord, presents bronze lamp 
to the Taj Mahal, 228. 

Darjeeling, on the roof of the world, 
132 et seq. 

Delhi, official seat of the government, 
214 et seq. 

Delhi Gate, at Delhi, 217. 

Diamonds, treasures of the Indian 
princes, 281. 

Divorce, in Siam, 22; in Burma, 105. 

Diwan-i-Khas, splendours of the, at 
Delhi, 217. 

Dorns, the burners of the dead at, 
Benares, 191, 192. 

Dress, importance of, at society func¬ 
tions in India, 294. 

Dunneedaw, Burma, oil refineries at, 
93- 

Dyer, General, retired after the Amrit¬ 
sar trouble, 285. 

Ear boring, of the Burmese girls, 101. 

Education, in Siam, 20; in Burma, 64. 
107; great awakening among the 
Mohammedans, 223; condition of 
the women and girls of India, 242; 
sons of the rajahs sent to leading 
colleges abroad, 253. 

Elephants, their use in teak lumbering 
in Burma, 82 et seq.; captured and 
tamed for work purposes in Burma, 
83; of the Maharajah of Jaipur, 247. 

Elephants, White, decline in glory in 
Siam, 23; in Burma, 87. 

Emerald Idol, at Bangkok, 28. 


INDEX 


Everest, Mount, height of, 132; com¬ 
pared to Fujiyama and Pike's 
Peak, 133. 

Famines, of frequent occurrence, 207. 

Fanatics, religious, in Benares, 186. 

Farmers, hardest worked and poorest 
paid, in India, 203 et seq. 

Farming, in India, 203. 

Fire walking religious fanatics, 187. 

Fire worshippers, the Parsees, 267. 

Food, expensive in India, 297. 

Fort Dufferin, the walled inner city of 
Mandalay, 108. 

Foucher, his translations of ancient 
Chinese documents lead to discovery 
of Buddha’s ashes at Peshawar, 162. 

Fuel, scarcity of, in India, 204. 

Funeral customs, of Siam, 30. 

Gaekwar of Baroda, his uplift work, 
200; his laws restricting child 
marriages, 240; his gold cannon and 
collection of jewellery, 249. 

Gambling in Siam, 21. 

Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand, 
against use of railroads, 176; on the 
sacredness of cattle, 185; on the evils 
of caste, 201; leader of the non¬ 
cooperators, 285. 

Ganges River, heavily laden with silt, 
111; its bathers and burning ghats, 
189 et seq. 

“Gates to India” the four main passes 
from the north, 156. 

Ghee, the butter of Hindustan, 204. 

Golconda, the ancient diamond pro¬ 
ducing centre, 250. 

Gold, hoarding of, in India, 281. 

Golden Pagoda, at Rangoon, 46, 55 
et seq. 

Golden Temple, at Benares, 183. 

Gostling, David, efforts in developing 
India’s water-power, 275. 

Government ownership of railroads 
in India, 175. 

Governor of Bengal, his imposing 
palace in Calcutta, 122, 123. 

Guatama, Siddhartha, or Buddha the 
Enlightened, 158 et seq. 

Gurkhas, in the Indian army, 283. 

Hanoi, capital of Tongking, 41. 

Head-hunters, in the Himalayas, 150. 

Heber, Bishop, on the wonders of the 
Taj Mahal, 228. 


Herford, Oliver, on the yak, 139. 

Himalaya Mountains, the roof of the 
world, 132 et seq.; influence of on 
India’s population, 133. 

Hindus, number of, in India, 125; their 
religion, 178 et seq.) causes of their 
poverty, 205. 

Hindustan, extent of the tea industry, 
M 3 - 

Hiuen Tsang, ancient records of, result 
in discovery of ashes of Buddha at 
Peshawar, 163. 

Hoarded wealth of India, 280. 

Home rule, concessions to, in India, 
127. 

Hooghly River, although difficult 
of navigation, is filled with shipping, 
112. 

Housekeeping, simplicity of, in Burma, 
106; expensive in India, 296. 

Howrah, near Calcutta, a great rail¬ 
way terminus, 113. 

Hu6, capital of Annam, 43. 

Husband hunting, among the English 
in India, 295. 

Hydro-electric developments in India, 
275 - 

Infanticide, female infants destroyed 
in India, 238. 

Independent Territory, region be¬ 
tween Afghanistan and India, 156. 

Indian Army, at home and in the 
World War, 282 et seq. 

Indo-China, extent of the French 
possessions, 41. 

Iron ore, deposits of, in Siam, 19; in 
Tongking, 41; development of the 
mines in India, 277. 

Irrawaddy, one of the world’s greatest 
rivers, 46, 49. 

Irrigation, extent of, and methods 
used, 208. 

Isabella Thoburn College, founded 
at Lucknow by American Methodist 
Church, 242. 

Jade, mining of, in Burma, 96. 

Jaipur, finest native capital of India, 
243 et seq. 

Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy Institute, 
founded in Bombay by a Parsee, 
272. 

Jamshedpur, iron and steel works at, 
276. 

Jannu, Mount, height of, 132. 


307 


INDEX 


Japan, tea growing in, 142. 

Japanese, their use of tea, 142. 

Jats, in the Indian army, 283. 

Java, tea production in, 142. 

Jelap Pass, the gate to Tibet, 140. 

Jewellery, of the Siamese, 9; in Cochin 
China, 38, 39; of the Burmese, 100; 
of the women of the Himalayan 
highlands, 137; riches of the native 
princes, 249. 

Judson, Adoniram, his missionary 
work in Burma, 65. 

Juggernaut, the cars of, 179. 

Jugglers, the basket, mango, and 
snake tricks, 263, 264. 

Jumma Musjid, immense mosque at 
Delhi, 219. 

Jute, vast quantities shipped from 
Calcutta, 112. 

Kabru, Mount, height of, 132. 

Kali, human sacrifices offered to, 181, 
290. 

Khai-Dinh, king of Annam, 43. 

Khyber Pass, principal gate into India 
from the north, 156. 

Khyber Rifles, guardsmen of the Pass, 
1 57 - 

Kinchinjanga, Mount, height of, 132; 
compared to Mount Blanc and 
Mount McKinley, 133. 

Kutab Minar, commemorative tower 
near Delhi, 216. 

Labour, high cost of, a detriment to 
railway construction in Burma, 51; 
difficulties in obtaining efficient 
help in cotton factories, 260; condi¬ 
tion and pay of employees, 261. 

Lady Hardinge Medical College, at 
Delhi, 242. 

Lahore Gate, at Delhi, 217. 

Languages, the many different, of 
India, 125. 

Lead, rich deposits in Tongking, 41; 
in Burma, 97. 

Legislature, of India, its composition 
and power, 127. 

Lepchas, one of the mountain tribes 
near Darjeeling, 137. 

Live stock, attempts by the govern¬ 
ment for improvement of, 211. 

Maharajah of Gwalior, a progressive 
ruler, 252. 


Maharajah of Jaipur, an absolute 
monarch, 246. 

Maharajah of Mysore, active in 
modern development of his coun¬ 
try’s natural resources, 252. 

Maharana of Udaipur, wealthy and 
unprogressive native ruler, 250, 251. 

Maharao of Cutch, notably unprogres¬ 
sive, 252. 

Mahrattas, in the Indian army, 283. 

Malabar Hill and the Towers of 
Silence, 266. 

Manganese, abundance of, in India, 
280. 

Mango trick of the Indian jugglers, 
264. 

Marriage, an expensive luxury in 
India, 296. 

Methodist Church, founds the Isabella 
Thoburn College for Women, at 
Lucknow, 242. 

Mineral resources of India, 277. 

McKinley, Mount, compared to 
Mount Kinchinjanga, 133. 

Maidan, the, the great park at Cal¬ 
cutta, 114. 

Mandalay, old capital of Burma, 50; 
not a cosmopolitan city, 98; a trip 
through the bazaars, 98; points of 
interest in the city, 108; Buddha’s 
ashes transferred to, from Peshawar, 

161. 

Markets, at Bankok, 12; at Saigon, 
39; at Darjeeling, 138. 

Marriage customs, of Siam, 21; of the 
Burmese, 102, 103; among the 

Hindus, 233 et seq. 

Menam, the largest river in Siam, 3. 

Methodist Mission, its work in Burma, 

65- 

Missionary work, in Burma, 64. 

Mohammed, a hair from his mous¬ 
tache at Delhi, 220. 

Mohammedans, number of, in India, 
125. 

Mohammedanism, strength of, in 
India, 220. 

Mohammedan University at Aligarh, 
its work along progressive lines, 223. 

Money changers of Saigon, 39. 

Money-lenders of Burma, 71. 

Mongkut, a progressive king of Siam, 
17; cost of his funeral, 31. 

Monkeys, the sacred, of Benares, 182. 

Moplahs, massacres by the, 222. 

Mumtaz-i-Mahal, wife of Shah Jehan 


INDEX 


who built the Taj Mahal as her 
monument, 229. 

Nagas, a wild Mongol people, 153. 

Names, how selected for children in 
Burma, 107. 

Nautch girls, dancing at wedding 
ceremony, 239. 

Natives, excluded from British 
society, 298. 

Native rulers, their wealth and power, 
248 et seq. 

Native States, their part in the Indian 
Empire, 126. 

Nilgiri Hills, the wild tribes of the, 

v .154. 155* 

Nizam of Hyderabad, richest of the 
native princes, 249, 251. 

O’Dwyer, Sir Michael, retired after 
the Amritsar trouble, 284. 

Oil, old and new developments in 
Burma, 89 et seq.; in Beluchistan 
and the Punjab, 93. 

Oil refineries, at Syriam, Burma, 46,92. 

Opium, control of traffic in Siam, 21; 
effect of abolishment by China on 
production in India, 212; consump¬ 
tion being lessened in India, 212. 

Parsees, the beauty of the women and 
their attractive costumes, 258; 
their strange religion and method of 
disposal of their dead, 266, et seq.; 
their wealth, education and chari¬ 
tableness, 272; freedom of their 
women, 273. 

Partab Singh, Sir, in the World War, 
284. 

Pathans, in the Indian army, 283. 

Pazunduang, Burma, world’s greatest 
rice mill at, 66. 

Peacock Throne of Shah Jehan at 
Delhi, 218. 

Pearl Mosque, at Agra, 230. 

Peshawar, discovery of ashes of 
Buddha at, 160. 

Petroleum, old and new developments 
in Burma, 89 et seq.; in Baluchistan 
and the Punjab, 93. 

Phipps, Henry, founds Agricultural 
school in Bengal, 209. 

Pigmies, of the Andaman Islands, 152. 

Pike’s Peak, compared to Mount 
Everest, 133. 

Pilgrimages, to Benares, 178, 189. 


Pilots, a close corporation in Calcutta, 
112. 

Pnom-Penh, capital city of Cambodia, 
45- 

Poisoners, the work of the, 290. 

Polyandry, common in the Himalayas, 
137. 154- 

Poppy, extent of cultivation for opium 
making, 212. 

Population and comparative size of 
India, 124, 125. 

Poverty, in India, 114; among the 
workers in Bombay, 262. 

Prayer wheels of the Tibetans, 138. 

Princes’ colleges for sons of the native 
rulers, 253. 

Prison, at Rangoon, condition and 
occupations of the many prisoners, 
74 et seq. 

Prison administration, study of, by 
British committee, 80. 

Pundita Ramabai, work for bettering 
condition of Hindu widows, 241. 

Pwes, typical Burmese entertain¬ 
ments, 103. 

Railways, in Burma, 50; toy trains on 
the route to Darjeeling, 135; travel¬ 
ling on, in India, 168 et seq. 

Rajputs, in the Indian army, 283. 

Rama, King of Siam, 14 et seq. 

Rangoon, capital of Burma, 46 et seq. 

Rangoon jail, condition and occupa¬ 
tions of the many prisoners, 74 et seq. 

Religious divisions, of India, 125. 

Religious fanatics, in Benares, 186. 

Rice, principal food of Siamese, 19; 
chief crop of Cochin China, 40; 
chief export of Rangoon, 49; handl¬ 
ing of Burma’s money crop, 66 et 
seq.; staple food of the Burmese, 
106; the chief cereal crop of India, 
210. 

Rubies, production of the mines in 
Burma, 94; many synthetic imita¬ 
tions on the market, 95. 

Russian tea, produced in China, 146. 

Sacrifices, human, to the goddess 
Kali, 181. 

Saigon, prosperous centre of French 
influence in the Orient, 35 et seq. 

Savages, in the Himalayas, 150. 

Scott, Sir David, sends specimens of 
India’s native tea plant to England, 
148. 


309 


INDEX 


Servants, personal, a problem in 
India, 170. 

Servants of India Society and its work 
for the people, 200. 

“Seven Hundred and Thirty” Pago¬ 
das, at Mandalay, containing the 
books of Buddha engraved on 
stone, 110. 

Shah Jehan, of the Grand Moguls, 
217, 218, 219; builds the Taj 
Mahal as a monument to his wife, 
229; his royal palace, 231. 

Shive Dagon, the Golden Pagoda at 
Rangoon, 46, 55 et seq. 

Siamese, customs of the, 8. 

Sikhs, number of, in India, 125; 
in the Indian Army, 283. 

Silver, rich deposits in Tongking, 41; 
in Burma, 97. 

Sisowath, the king of Cambodia, 45. 

Sleeping Buddha, at Bankok, 29; 
at Pechaburi, 29, 30. 

Snake trick of the Indian jugglers, 264. 

Social life of the British in India, 294. 

Spooner, Dr., excavations at Pesha¬ 
war result in discovery of ashes of 
Buddha, 162. 

Sports, of the English in India, 294. 

Standard Oil Company, supplies 
Asiatic market, 91. 

Steel, works of the Tata company at 
Jamshedpur, 276. 

Sugarcane, attempts of the govern¬ 
ment to stimulate production of, 
211. 

Su'e Pagoda, at Rangoon, 46. 

Suttee, the burning of widows on their 
husbands’ funeral pyres, 237. 

Syrian, Burma, oil refineries at, 46, 92. 

Taj Mahal, most beautiful structure 
in the world, 225 et seq. 

Tata, Sir Dorabji, head of the great 
steel corporation of India, 276 et 
seq. 

Tata family, captains of industry, 274 
et seq. 

Tata Iron and Steel Company, one of 
the largest in Asia, 276. 

Taylor, Bayard, on the Pearl Mosque 
of Agra, 230. 

Tea, its use and how and where pro¬ 
duced, 141 et seq.) its use, originates 
in China, and from thence intro¬ 
duced into Japan and Europe, 147; 
beginning of the industry in India, 


148; propaganda by Ceylon planters 
to increase the use of, 148; by India 
planters, 149. 

Tea chests, the manufacture of, 145. 

Tea plantations of the Himalayas, 
141 et seq. 

Teak, dense forests of, in Siam, 19. 
elephants indispensable for lumber¬ 
ing in Burma, 82 et seq. 

Temple brides, a growing public 
opinion against, 239. 

Ten Commandments of Buddhism, the, 
165. 

Thebaw, king of Burma overthrown 
by the British, 108. 

Thugs, under control, 290. 

Tibet, trade with through Darjeeling, 
139- 

Tiger Hill, at Darjeeling, 132. 

Tigers, fear of, among the Annamese, 
44- 

Tin, deposits of, in Siam, 19; rich de¬ 
posits in Tongking, 41; in Burma, 
97- 

Tobacco smoking, a general habit in 
Siam, 10; and in Burma, 101. 

Tongking, railroads and minerals, 41. 

Towers of Silence, and the disposal of 
the Parsee dead, 266 et seq. 

Travelling on the railways of India, 
168 et seq. 

Tribute, paid by British to barbarians 
of the Himalayas, 150. 

Tungsten, deposits of, in Siam, 19; 
in Burma, 97. 

Turquoise, found in Tibet, 137. 

Unexplored country, in the Hima¬ 
layas, 150. 

Vedas, sacred books of Hinduism, 181. 

Viceroy of India, and his duties, 120 
et seq. 

Vultures, and the Towers of Silence, 
266 et seq. 

Wat Phra Keo, finest of the Buddhist 
temples of Bangkok, 27. 

Wat Sa Ket, Buddhist temple at Bang¬ 
kok, 26; disposal of corpses in court¬ 
yard of, 33. 

Water-power developments in India, 
275- 

Well of Knowledge, at Benares, 183. 

Wheat, next to rice the main cereal 
crop of India, 210. 


310 


INDEX 


White ants, destruction of, on India’s 
railroads, 174. 

Widows, horrors of their fate in 
India, 236; the practice of suttee, 
237- 

Wild tribes, of India, 150 et seq. 

Willingdon Club, Indians as well as 
British eligible to membership in, 
299- 

Witchcraft, of the Animists, 152. 

Wolfram, deposits of, in Siam, 19. 

Women, condition in Siam, 11; given 
the vote in Burma, 54; as labourers 
in Burma, 67; their condition in 
Burma, 98 et seq.; condition of, in 
India, 125, 233 et seq.; the porters 
and street labourers of Darjeeling, 


136; as labourers, at Jaipur, 245; 
the beauty and the attractive cos¬ 
tumes of the Parsees, 258; in Bom¬ 
bay cotton mills, 261. 

Women physicians, necessary among 
the Hindus, 242. 

Workshops, of the Rangoon Jail, 76. 

Yak, the Tibetan beast of burden, 139. 

Yanadis, the jungle people, 152. 

Yogis and fanatics in Benares, 186. 

Zinc, rich deposits in Tongking, 41; 
in Burma, 97. 

Zoroastrianism, the religion of the 
Parsees, 266. 






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